


War Crimes

by mosylu



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Historical, And Not Ashamed of It Either, Author is a Research Nerd, Everybody's Looking Sharp, F/M, Get Some Benny Goodman on the Radio, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 50,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3161369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Historical AU. In 1947 New York, a motley group of strangers are about to come face-to-face with the idea that you can catch a criminal from within his own mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm watching Agent Carter, and remembering how very much I enjoyed writing and posting this story at FF.net a few years ago. I decided to re-post it over here. 
> 
> Original Author's Note: Honestly, this came about because of Garcia's hair. Yes, Garcia's hair. Follow me here. There was an episode where she was wearing it in this marvelous retro-40's do, and I started picturing how she'd look in a whole 40's ensemble. And then I started picturing the entire cast in 40's styles. (Boy howdy, would it suit Reid, and Morgan would rock a fedora like nobody's business.) Then I started thinking about how different their lives would have been sixty years ago, and then the social and cultural upheaval of an entire nation coming back from WWII, and . . . well . . . enjoy.
> 
> Historical Note: Shell shock was the World War I term, and battle fatigue the WWII term, for what we now call PTSD.

_New York City, August 1947_

Aaron Hotchner added cream to his coffee and lit a cigarette. "To tell the truth, Dave, my problem with Strauss is that he'd rather have the paperwork done by five then actually figure out what's going on in his precinct."

"I don't disagree," David Rossi said mildly, forking up another bite of the best apple pie on the east side. "But you have to admit that approach gets you home on time, Hotch."

"You never cared much about that."

"I didn't have much to go home to."

"You had plenty to go out to," Hotch said, with only a trace of irony.

Rossi's lip curled. He was in one of his periodic episodes of attempted fidelity to his wife. It wouldn't last. It never did.

"Take the Garner case," Hotch said. "Victim got worked over in a dark alley, every bone in his body broken before he's shot in the head at close range."

"Garner? Would that be 'Ladies' Man' Garner? Mob hit."

"You'd think, but he hadn't done anything to make them mad. His girls said he'd paid up his hush money just like he always did, kept his nose clean. No reason to kill him."

"That you know of," Rossi said, with the cynicism of thirty years' being a cop in New York City.

"Yes, well, that's what I was looking into. Strauss says, 'It's a mob hit, Detective Hotchner. Close the case and go on.'"

Rossi forked up some more pie. "Chances are that's exactly what it was."

"But I want the proof."

"You always do. Sometimes, Hotch, you have to let things go."

"I know that. But not until it's time."

"With you, it's never time."

Hotch started to reply, but another voice cut in.

"You're out of uniform, soldier."

It took a lot to surprise Hotch, but this would do it. He stared up at the face he'd last seen in a hospital in France and exclaimed, "Lieutenant Prentiss!" He rose to his feet and caught the hand she held out.

"Miss Prentiss," she corrected him. "War's over, sir."

"You know, I heard a rumor to that effect," he said.

She laughed. "Right. So what are you doing with yourself these days?"

"NYPD. I'm a detective." He surveyed her outfit, which had doubtless been white and crisp when she started her day. "And I see you're still nursing." He glanced out the window at the looming white bulk of Mercy General Hospital. "You work across the street?"

"Nowhere else. It's funny, what I see there isn't all that different from what used to come through my field hospital. Just less khaki."

"Hotch," Rossi said. "Are you going to introduce me?"

"Excuse me," Hotch said. "Miss Emily Prentiss, formerly of the Army Nurse Corps, meet Captain David Rossi of the NYPD."

She shook Rossi's hand, then frowned. "Am I interrupting official police business, gentlemen?"

"No, no, I'm retired," Rossi said. "Hotch just has trouble remembering it."

"I'm not the only one," Hotch murmured.

Rossi said over him, "We just meet for terrible coffee and excellent pie some days."

"It is amazing, isn't it? I usually eat in the hospital cafeteria, but today I just felt like I couldn't go another second without some rhubarb pie."

Hotch remembered his manners. "Are you on your way back to work, or can you join us?"

She checked her watch. "I can spare ten minutes for an old friend."

Hotch called the waitress over for another chair and an extra cup. Rossi started to light another cigarette, then paused. "I'm sorry, do you mind?"

"Oh, she's fine," Hotch said, tapping the ash off his own cigarette.

"Actually, I do mind. Sorry."

"You, Prentiss?" Peacetime _had_ changed her, if she was bothered by a little smoke.

"Must be something about old age. Can't stand 'em these days." She grinned apologetically, as if she knew what he was thinking. She'd always had that gift of reading faces. "Never fear, I still drink like a fish and swear like a sailor. It's just the smoking like a chimney part I've given up."

He stubbed his cigarette out. "Peace changes us all."

"Wish I believed that," she said. "You know, when Mercy heard I had front-line experience in the Corps, they snapped me right up. Should have been my first clue." She shook herself. "Never mind me. How long have you been in this precinct?"

"Not long," Hotch said. "They transferred me a few weeks ago."

"So we would've run across each other eventually," Emily said. "Detective, hmmm? Promotion?"

"Usually we'd call it that," Hotch said dryly, and made her laugh.

"What does your wife think of being married to a detective?"

Rossi winced.

Hotch said, "I'm not married."

Her brows drew together. "What about the girl you were always writing to over there? The one who wanted the white wedding and the little bungalow?"

Hotch pulled the dish of sugar cubes toward him and started dropping them one by one into his cup. "Things changed, after I got back. We broke it off. She married an insurance salesman last month. I hear they're happy."

"Wow," she said softly. "My big mouth. Sorry, sir."

He shrugged and sipped his coffee. It was gaggingly sweet. He set it down again.

"So. Um. You catch any interesting cases lately, Detective?"

"More than I need," Hotch said, grasping at the mention of work. "You probably see a lot of the same people who land on my desk."

"Probably do. Hey, that reminds me. You know a beat cop named Anderson? I've got a beef with him."

"Anderson? What about him?"

"Two weeks ago, a gunshot victim was brought in on my shift. ID'd as Wally Wilton, local bookie and basically boil on the ass of humanity. Every major bone in his body broken, some of the minor ones, too. Finally shot in the head from close up. He lived just long enough to get to Mercy."

Hotch's eyes narrowed. "Go on."

"Your Officer Anderson gets the ID of the victim, doesn't even open his notebook. 'Mob hit,' he says, and he's out of there before the blood finishes dripping."

Hotch stirred his too-sweet coffee to give his hands something to do. "Bookie," he said. "Mob hit's a logical conclusion."

"Of course it is," she said. "I thought the same until I got a look at the body. But I know mob hits, and this wasn't one."

"Sure sounds like one to me," Rossi said.

She glanced at him. "The mob goons are nasty, but . . . detached, you know? Just business. This was _not_ detached. Frankly, it looked like he made someone mad as hell." She sat back. "Look, I'm not denying he probably could make someone that mad. Guy was filth. But even he didn't deserve to die like that."

Hotch picked up his half-smoked, stubbed-out cigarette and rolled it through his fingers. "What kind of weapon?" he asked, staring at the crumpled end.

"Colt .45," she answered readily.

"Are you sure of that?" Rossi asked skeptically.

She shot him an exasperated look. "I know that wound when I see it." She spread her hands. "I'm not trying to be Nancy Drew here, sir. I just want your boys to work a little harder at getting their answers."

"I'll look into it," Hotch said.

She glanced at her watch again. "Ah, hell. I've got to run." She nudged her untouched coffee away. "Nice meeting you, Captain Rossi."

Hotch and Rossi rose as she did. "Likewise," Rossi said.

"See you around, Captain Hotchner."

He said, "Miss Prentiss, wait."

She paused, half-turned to go.

"If somebody else comes through your hospital with those same injuries, I want you to let me know first thing."

She studied him, the annoyance in her face gradually easing. "First thing, huh?"

He scribbled an address in his notebook, ripped out the paper, and handed it to her. "You can reach me at the precinct, but also my rooms. I rent at a boardinghouse six blocks from here. Any time, day or night. Doesn't matter."

She looked at it for several seconds. "You're serious," she said. "Who else did this happen to?"

"Any time," he repeated.

When she'd left, Rossi finally lit the cigarette he'd been holding. "Interesting coincidence," he said.

"Extremely interesting."

"Pretty girl."

Hotch shot him a dark look.

"You sure you believe her? About this not-mob hit? Her reasoning was pretty flimsy."

"I just think that on top of the Garner case, it's . . . worth looking at."

"Have you thought she might just be trying to catch your attention?"

"Lieutenant Prentiss? No, if she were trying to catch my attention, she'd be more direct about it."

Rossi smirked. "Like that, is she?"

"Look, maybe her behavior's not all it could be. In the Corps, she went up and down the ranks like a yo-yo. But she knows two things extremely well, and that's nursing and people." The older man still looked skeptical, so Hotch elaborated. "Once she came to me and said, 'Captain Hotchner, you need to send Private Stevenson on medical leave. Right now.' I said, 'Thank you for your opinion, but no, I won't.' Two nights later, Stevenson snapped and killed all three of his tentmates."

Rossi let out a low, soundless whistle. "Shell shock?"

"They call it battle fatigue these days. She saw it before anybody else did. From then on, I listened to Lieutenant Prentiss."

"So you'll listen to her now."

"Long enough to have another look at Anderson's report."

"Aren't you busy enough?"

"People are dying for no reason I can figure, Dave. I had enough of that in Europe."


	2. Chapter 2

Derek Morgan paused just outside the station doors and took a breath, thinking, _White, white, white._ Stand white, talk white, wear your hat white.

He'd never really pass. He was too dark for that, especially in August. But he was lighter than most, and cops and doctors might talk to a high yellow who wore white like a coat. A darker man, they'd say, "Go on home, boy, it's none of your affair."

He hated doing it, but it was for Barney.

He'd known Barney Finks from the moment they'd first bashed each other with toy blocks to the day Barney had been found in a nasty alley on the white side of town, broken into pieces and shot in the head. They hadn't spoken for years, but the memory of their one-time friendship pushed Morgan now, because the cops had said, "mugging," and closed the book.

What happened to Barney hadn't been some damn mugger.

 _Shit, Barney, you owe me,_ he thought, and then remembered that Barney was in no position to pay him back, ever.

He pulled the doors open and strode in, just like he had a right to be here.

"Derek Morgan," he said, trying to remember the precise diction, the light vowels and neat consonants of his schoolteachers. "I'm a private investigator. I need to talk to Officer Cox about one of his closed cases."

"He's not here," the desk sarge said, guzzling coffee. He was mostly gut, and Morgan wondered how far he could tip back in his chair without his fat ass hitting the ground.

"When does he work next?"

"He's out sick, we don't know when." The man eyed him suspiciously. "You Spanish or something?"

Morgan ignored that. "Then I need to see his report on the Barney Finks murder." The words felt nasty in his mouth, a man with a whole life reduced to the way he died.

"Look, buddy, this is a cop shop, not a library. Whattaya wanna know for?"

"Look, _buddy_ ," he said hotly. "I told you, I'm a private investigator, looking into the Finks murder."

"So you're professionally nosy, is that it?"

"What seems to be the trouble, Billings?"

Billings sat up a little straighter. "Nosy parker here wants to get into our closed cases, Detective."

Morgan wheeled around and took a quick study of the man standing just inside the doors. An inch taller, a few years older, stern face made sterner by the heavy dark brows. He held himself like an officer, and Morgan thought, _Army? Yeah. Commissioned, too, if I were to put money on it._

He appeared to be studying Morgan right back, and Morgan wondered if he could see the Marines on him, his time in the South Pacific, New York born and bred, or if he just saw skin.

"I'm a PI," Morgan told him. "Name's Morgan."

"Detective Hotchner." Hotchner extended his hand.

Morgan shook, slightly mollified. "I'm looking into the death of Barney Finks. I'm just askin' to see the file, is all."

"I'm not familiar with that case," the detective said. He glanced at Billings, whose face said clearly, _And I am?_

"Found in an alley a week ago," Morgan said, for what felt like the twelfth time that day. "All broken up, dead of a gunshot wound to the head."

The detective's eyebrows lowered. "What was the name again? Of the victim."

"Finks. Barney Finks. Officer Michael Cox investigated."

"Billings, I'll handle this."

Billings made a your-funeral face and went back to sucking down coffee. Morgan resisted the temptation to kick his chair legs out from under him as he passed.

The detective stopped at a desk with a nameplate that said, "Officer Cox," and sifted through the piles of paper, sliding one out. He turned toward one of the interview rooms. Morgan hesitated on the threshold. Hotchner didn't seem to notice. "Close the door," he said, frowning over the paper. "Tell me more about what happened to Finks."

"I told you pretty much what I know," Morgan said, wondering if he was going to be asked for his whereabouts on the night in question.

"All broken up," Hotchner muttered. He pulled a notebook out of an inside pocket and flipped through it. He stopped and scowled at a page. "Can you be more specific? Which bones were broken? How many?"

Morgan took out his own notebook and read off his notes, although he could have recited it without. "Leg, arm, collarbone, ribs, a couple of fingers. Before he died, the doc said. Like somebody'd beaten him with a pipe."

"A pipe?" Hotchner jotted something down.

"According to the doctor." Morgan gestured. "Look, I already talked to him." And hadn't that been a massive pain in his ass. "I'm trying to figure what the cops know. So if I could -"

"Do you have a written report?"

"From the doctor? Nah, I interviewed him."

"What was his name and which hospital?"

"Hightower, at Mercy General."

"Mercy, just up the street?"

"Yeah. Detective, I just wanna read Cox's report."

"Oh." He passed the paper over as if he'd forgotten the whole point of this interview.

It wasn't much more informative than the doctor had been. _Light-skinned Negro . . . discovered between the addresses of . . . severely beaten . . . cause of death, gunshot to the head . . . likely resulting from a botched mugging attempt._

"This is it?" Morgan said.

"Yes," Hotchner said absently. He was now flipping back and forth through his notebook, pausing to fold down corners.

"This is everything he found, and he closed it."

"I'll reopen it."

That caught Morgan off guard. He'd said it so bluntly. Like, of course, this white detective, who was already overworked by the looks of things, would reopen a case on a Negro man that already had a neat and tidy answer.

The detective stopped at a page and repositioned his pencil. "Do you know if Mr. Finks was acquainted with either Wally Wilton or Randall Garner?"

He started to say no, and stopped. "I don't know," he said instead. "We were friends once, but not so much lately. Could be. Why?"

Hotchner looked at him. "Mr. Morgan, I'll be honest. Mr. Finks's case bears a strong resemblance to two other instances that have recently come to my attention. Do you have a phone where I could reach you?"

"My office," Morgan said, writing it down. "You can leave a message with my secretary." Sarah would kill him for calling her his secretary, but it sounded better than "sister."

Hotchner took it, then scribbled something in his own notebook. "This is my number here at the station, but under that is the telephone at my boarding house," he said, ripping the page out. "I'd like you to keep me apprised of any new developments you come across, especially if those two men I mentioned were involved."

Morgan pocketed it. "Two other instances," he repeated. "Were they killed too?"

On his way out the door already, Detective Hotchner said, "Yes."

Morgan stood alone in the interview room and watched him stride through the bullpen and sit down at a desk already overflowing with files and paperwork. "Damn, Barney," he murmured. "What did you get mixed up in?"

* * *

"Well, hey, dollface!"

Emily looked up, and the smile came out automatically. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

The woman perched on the front stoop fluffed her platinum blonde hair and smoothed her bright red dress. "It's a tough job, but somebody's got to be beautiful around here." Penelope Garcia stubbed out her cigarette and tossed it into the bushes. "You look bushed, sweetness. Angel of mercy had a long day?"

Emily sank down on the stoop next to her. The smell of fresh smoke hanging in the air made her stomach roll, but she swallowed it back. "I used to be in surgery for days in France. Why are eight little hours killing me? Never mind, I know why." She sighed and put her chin in her hands.

"Aww." She put her arm around Emily's shoulders. "Aunt Penelope is here for you. Cheer up, lambytoes."

Emily nodded at the glass that sat next to her friend's hip. "Only if you share some of that."

She passed it over and Emily took a deep gulp. "Jesus, Penelope. Water?"

"Oh, Miss Lynch is on the warpath again. She'll wink at smoking, but let a girl try to have a nice drink in this place and she wants to paint A's on your clothes. If you ask me, she needs a man."

Emily grimaced, thinking of the dried-up spinster who ran the professional girls' boardinghouse where both she and Penelope rented rooms. "Or ten minutes with one."

"Ten minutes? You know some real nice men, honey."

"Not so much. Five of those ten would be to get her damn girdle off."

They broke into laughter, and a curtain twitched.

Emily eased off her shoes and propped her right foot on her left knee to massage all the knots out. She let out a blissful sigh. "So, speaking of men, I ran into an old friend today. Someone I knew in France. Captain Hotchner, he was then."

"Ooo! Is he handsome? Is he single? Answer the second part first please, slowly and clearly for our studio audience."

"Yes, yes, and oh, no, I'm not even thinking it." She switched feet.

"My, my, that was emphatic. Is he funny?"

"No, he likes girls well enough. Not what you'd call a ladies' man, but I noticed him checking out my rear flanks a few times in France." She stretched both legs out and rested her heels on the sidewalk.

"Just how good of friends were you?" Penelope wiggled her brows.

"Penelope, he was engaged. Anyway, there were hundreds of men for every woman over there. My butt got more surveillance than Berlin."

"I knew I should've gone to nursing school." Penelope sighed for lost chances. "But you're not in France now. And from the sounds of it, he's not engaged anymore either. You going to go for him?"

"Don't you think I've gotten in enough man trouble lately?" Even though she knew it would make her sick, Emily suddenly craved a cigarette. "Plus, he's handsome, but kind of a stiff. _Not_ in the good way. No, I'll run into him enough without angling for romance. He's a detective at the police station near Mercy."

"Ah-ha, now the light dawns. Wally Wilton?"

"The same."

"And?"

"He listened. He had a pal with him, retired cop who was making 'Oh, isn't the little lady cute,' noises, but Hotch listened." She touched her pocket reflectively. "He told me to contact him if anybody else came through Mercy beaten up like that. At the precinct or at his rooms. Anytime."

" _In_ -teresting," Penelope drawled. "Let's trot on over there tonight, shall we?"

Emily gave her the hairy eyeball. "Boardinghouse, honey. Probably rents from some bitchy widow who's more dried-up than Lynch."

"If we're talking bitchy widows, I'm more than a match for anyone," Penelope said cheerfully. "But this isn't just me wanting to get a gander at a handsome officer of the law."

Emily's eyes narrowed, for real this time. "What have you heard?"

"One of my girls up at the library came in with a story from her neighborhood. Happened last night. Beaten up, shot in the head. Everybody's shocked. He was a family man."

She worked at the local branch of the New York Public Library, which always astounded Emily when she thought of it. Penelope, with her bright lipstick, her vivid clothes, and her warm chatterbox ways, was about as far from the usual pinch-lipped librarian as you could get. But the other woman just said, "Oh, sweetie, you know I've just got to know everything."

And she did. People told Penelope things, and while she kept the secrets that needed keeping, she was an expert at assembling pieces together into a puzzle you didn't even know was there.

"Well, well. " Emily gulped more water. "What's on the table tonight?"

"Potatoes and onions." Penelope wrinkled her nose. "Someone needs to tell her rationing's over."

"As soon as I can move, I'm going to change out of this straitjacket and then we're going to Betty's for corned beef. My treat."

"Oh, no." Penelope popped to her feet and held out her hands, hoisting Emily up. "No, no. You're saving up your money, pumpkin, remember? _My_ treat. And for dessert, a delicious man?"

Emily grinned and looped her arm over her friend's shoulders. "All you can eat."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's History Lesson Time! I hope most of you guys know this, but there are readers from other countries so, here we go. The banner in the window is known as a service banner. In the U.S., it's displayed by families who have one or more members in military service. These days it's standardized and produced by Guv'mint Approved Producers, but back then people just made their own. A blue star meant you had a relative in active-duty service. A silver star meant that your relative had been wounded in battle and invalided home. A gold star meant your relative had died in battle.
> 
> On with the show.

Penelope peered up at the street sign and let out a sigh. "I knew I shouldn't have worn these shoes."

"Beauty is pain," Emily said mercilessly. "Come on, it can't be much further."

The neighborhood was one of those quiet ones, she noted. Kids playing on the sidewalk, mothers talking on stoops. Shabby, but carefully kept up. She took a step to the side as a kid rocketed past her, a stick in his hand. He fired pretend shots over his shoulder at a pack of little buddies. "Bam! Bambam! Dirty Nazis! You'll never take me alive!"

She wanted to grab them all and tell them it wasn't like that. But kids were kids, and kids played war. Always had, always would.

Penelope called, "Careful, sweetie!" to one kid who stumbled. She turned to Emily. "Did I tell you? I was going through the vertical files and I saw another one."

"What happened?"

"He died after an icicle fell on him."

"You're kidding. Did it bash his brains out, or what?"

"Better. Stabbed him right through the top of the head."

"Interesting," Emily said. "Tragic, sudden, a little bit freaky. There's just one problem."

"I know it sounds farfetched, sweetie, but that's the genius factor. It's so weird nobody would ever think you were making it up."

"Yes, but this is late August. Where would there be icicles?"

Penelope's face fell. "Awww."

Emily patted her arm. "I'm sticking to hit by a bus. Simple yet effective."

"Boring, you mean."

"Here's the street. I told you it wasn't too much further."

The address Hotch had given her belonged to a cramped two-story house about a third of the way down. The flowers in the window boxes were hardy specimens that didn't need much tending but still looked pretty. The front steps were crumbling at the edges, but the porch was swept very clean. The curtains were sun-faded, but whoever had picked the color had picked one that would fade nicely. The frames and crosspieces of the windows were all painted a vivid, sunny yellow. One of the gutters was barely starting to come loose.

"Nice place," Penelope said. "Someone works real hard."

Emily tapped her on the arm and nodded at the front windows. One had a discreet, hand-lettered sign that said, "Rooms to Let, Reasonable Rates. Board included." The other held a faded banner, a white rectangle bordered in red. On the white rectangle, there was one solitary gold star.

Penelope, who had a similar flag folded up in a trunk at the foot of her bed, sighed. "Husband or son?"

"Whoever it was, he was all she had. There're no other stars."

Penelope crouched to pick up a wooden truck from the side of the steps. "Not all," she said, showing it to Emily. "From this, I'd guess husband."

Before they could knock on the door, it burst open and a small boy rammed into Penelope's midsection.

"Well, hi," Penelope said, steadying him. "I usually want guys to buy me a drink first, but you're cute."

He stared up at them, his floppy blond hair falling in disarray around his round face. He clutched a baseball in one hand and had a glove clamped in his armpit. "Can I help you?" he asked, too formally for a five-year-old.

"Hi," Emily said. "I'm Miss Prentiss, this is Mrs. Garcia. Is Detective Hotchner here?"

"No," he said, still formal. "May I take a message?"

A voice floated up the corridor. "Henry? Is that somebody at the door?" A woman came around the corner, cleaning her hands on a dish towel. She looked hardly older than her son, small and slim, blond and blue-eyed. But the tone of voice said clearly, _Mama_.

"Excuse me," she said, gently shifting Henry out of the way. "How can I help you?"

"We're looking for Detective Hotchner. He rooms here, doesn't he?"

Her eyes narrowed fractionally. "He's not in. Can I take a message?"

Penelope took half a step forward and at the same time, gave Emily a little nudge. _You just let me handle this._

"I'm so sorry, we're being rude. This is Miss Prentiss, I'm Mrs. Garcia. Emily and Penelope. And you are?"

"Mrs. LaMontagne," the woman said, automatically taking the hand Penelope held out. "Um. J.J."

"J.J! Isn't that the cutest! Is it short for something?"

"My initials - Jennifer, and Jareau was my maiden name."

"Like Jennifer Jones, from the movies? Oh, did you see _Duel in the Sun_ last year?"

Somehow they were inside. Emily marveled all over again at Penelope's abilities. It was like witchcraft sometimes, watching her work.

"No, I missed it," J.J. was saying. "I don't get to the movies much."

"Oh, of course, with your little boy, and keeping up the house. I saw what you did on the windows out there, the yellow crossbars, I loved it. Did you paint that yourself?"

"I helped," Henry piped up. "I stirred."

"I bet you did, baby. Are you a help to your mama?"

His tiny chest expanded visibly. "I'm the man of the house," he said.

Penelope's eyes softened as she looked back at Henry's mother. "We saw your banner, sweetie. I lost my husband at Midway."

All the wariness was gone now. "Utah Beach," she said, swallowing.

Something sparked in Emily's memory. "Don't tell me your husband was the Private William LaMontagne who served under Captain Hotch in Europe."

J.J's eyes widened. "Did you know him? How?"

"Army Nurse Corps. And yeah, I knew him a little. He was a real sweet guy."

Penelope, sensing what was coming, crouched to return Henry's truck to him and discuss its wooden merits in serious tones.

"He was," J.J. said softly. "The sweetest man I ever knew."

Emily put her hand on the other woman's elbow, a comforting touch. "I was on duty when he was brought in. It just broke my heart."

"You were at D-Day?"

"Not that day. But my unit moved over there a few days later. The first on the ground," she added proudly. "I think it was maybe the third day he was brought in."

"Captain Hotchner said it was very fast," J.J. said, her arm wrapped across her middle.

"It was," Emily said swiftly. "He didn't feel a thing."

A strange expression flickered across J.J.'s face, too fast to read. She took a breath and straightened her shoulders. "Henry, go outside and play. But remember, we're eating dinner soon." Henry lingered, but she gave him a light push out the door, and he disappeared. She closed it behind him. "Won't you ladies come into the parlor? I've got coffee."

* * *

Hotch turned the corner onto his street, thinking hard. Two might be a coincidence, three was pushing it pretty hard. Strauss had left before he could request permission to re-open the Wilton and Finks cases, but he was already planning to camp out in the captain's office the next morning.

His landlady's young son dashed up, hair every which way. "Captain Hotchner," he said solemnly, drawing himself up to his full height and saluting with his baseball-gloved hand.

Hotch returned the salute. "Private Henry. How's the pitch?"

"Not so good, sir." Henry shrugged it off and tagged along after him as he mounted the steps and opened the front door. "Some ladies came to see you. Mama's talking to them now."

He paused in the act of putting his hat away in the hall closet. "Ladies? Really?" His first thought was of Miss Prentiss, but who would she have brought with her? No acquaintance of Wally Wilton's, he hoped. Not to Mrs. LaMontagne's house.

He went into her parlor, where he found Miss Prentiss huddled together with Mrs. LaMontagne and an unfamiliar blond woman wearing a shade of red that would burn out an unwary retina. "And then I took mine out, and I said to him, 'Tell me, Brad, does it look anything like this?'"

All three women burst into laughter, and Hotch checked himself on the threshold. Had he ever seen Mrs. LaMontagne laugh like that? She moved around the edges of his life, providing food, corralling Henry when the boy got too rambunctious, and ensuring that his rooms were clean. But he'd never seen her like this, with other women. Did she have any other woman friends?

Miss Prentiss noticed him. "Well, good evening to you, sir."

The other women looked around, and the laughter slid away from Mrs. LaMontagne's face, leaving it the familiar bland expression he'd come to associate with her. Only now that he'd seen something different did he realize it was a sort of shield.

"Miss Prentiss," he said. "I assume this isn't a social call."

"Wish I could say otherwise, sir. I want you to meet my good friend, Mrs. Penelope Garcia."

"Hi," the woman in red said, shaking his hand. "I must say, Emily was not wrong."

"About?"

Miss Prentiss jumped in. "Mrs. Garcia got wind of something that's related to - " She glanced at Henry, draped wide-eyed over the back of the sofa. "What we were talking about earlier."

Mrs. LaMontagne caught her son's hand. "Henry, we're going to leave the ladies and Detective Hotchner to their discussion."

"I wanna hear," Henry said.

"Henry."

He subsided, muttering.

His mother turned to Hotch. "Whenever you're done, dinner's on the table."

"Thank you, Mrs. LaMontagne."

She glanced at Miss Prentiss and Mrs. Garcia. "It's just chicken salad, but there's plenty. You're both welcome."

"I'd jump on that if we hadn't already eaten," Miss Prentiss said. "Next time, for sure."

"Absolutely," Mrs. Garcia added. "Oh, and I'll bring over that fabric tomorrow, okay?"

"Yes, definitely. See you then." She nodded to them both and left, pulling a reluctant Henry along after her.

The door shut, and Hotch said, "Something related to the Wilton case?"

"Another death," Mrs. Garcia said. "Emily here told me what happened to Wilton, and when I heard about this murder, just the same, I knew it was important. Guy's name was Doug McLeod, and - "

_"Doug McLeod?_ "

The yelp came from two separate throats, and Mrs. Garcia actually took a step back. "O-kay," she said. "I guess that was important."

Miss Prentiss said, "Penelope, you didn't tell me it was Doug McLeod!"

"Sweetie, I don't know Doug McLeod from Adam. Did you?"

"Yeah, I did. He was under Hotch's command."

"Wait," Hotch said. "Wait. This is a big city. Is this the Doug McLeod who lives about ten blocks west? A corporal?"

Penelope frowned. "I don't know what rank he was, but that's the right neighborhood. Married to Annabelle, has a seven-year-old and a baby?"

"That's him," Hotch said.

Mrs. Garcia put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this, Detective. I had no idea."

"No, no, it's - " It wasn't fine. He kept thinking, _Doug_ and _dead_ and trying to put the two together. It wasn't working. "I'm glad to know." He pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed, trying to be a cop instead of a commanding officer. "Was he discovered close to home?"

"Yeah, a few blocks away from his house."

"I know that precinct. I'll go talk to them."

"He would have been taken to St. Joe's," Miss Prentiss said. "I'll go with you, sir, stop in there."

"Yes," he said. "Yes, that sounds good." He left the women conferring with each other and went into the hall to retrieve his hat. It hadn't even had time to cool off in the closet.

He took several steps further, into the kitchen, where Mrs. LaMontagne was cutting up bread for the chicken salad sandwiches. She glanced up, saw his hat, and immediately put the knife down. Henry said, " _Ohhhh,_ " in a resigned way.

"I'm very sorry," he said. "I have to go out. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I'll leave yours in the icebox."

"Thank you." He all but ran back up the corridor to where Miss Prentiss and Mrs. Garcia were opening the front door. Four victims, killed in the same way, was taking coincidence and jumping up and down on it.

_Doug McLeod._

Hell.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strauss refers to the Brooklyn Vampire. In case you've never heard of this charmer, Albert Fish was a child rapist and cannibal operating between 1919 and 1930. Also, in 1941, legal drinking age in New York State was eighteen.

". . . which is why I'm requesting permission to re-open the Wilton and Finks cases, and to work with the 5th on the McLeod case."

Strauss said, "No."

Behind his back, Hotch's hands clenched around each other. "Sir?"

The chief folded his hands and regarded Hotch over the top of them, ignoring the pictures and notes spread across his desk. "I know what's happening here."

"What's that, sir?"

"I know I'm pretty old. I know you boys in the bullpen say, 'That Strauss, he's been doing this so long he thinks he was born in blue.'"

_Not really,_ Hotch thought.

"But I do remember what it was like to be a new detective, hungry to make a name for yourself. You're not as young as some of our detectives, you don't have as long a career ahead of you. You can't rest on your war record forever." Strauss gestured at the folders. "You see all this, and you think this could be the big case, the one that puts your name in the papers and makes all your superiors sit up and take notice. And that's fine. I appreciate ambition. Nobody ever got anywhere without it. But it can be misplaced."

Hotch breathed through his nose and unclenched his teeth with effort. "Sir, with all due respect, this isn't about me. This is about them."

Strauss nodded. "That last one in there, McGill. He was a friend of yours, wasn't he?"

" _McLeod_ served with me overseas, sir."

"I remember that too. Brothers in arms. You promised the widow, didn't you? Said you'd catch this bastard no matter what. Said you wouldn't rest."

"I told her I would look into it, sir."

Strauss sighed theatrically. "Detective Hotchner, let me tell you something that you'll learn soon enough. People die. They get mugged, they get robbed, stupid accidents happen, and they die. You could go an entire career without running into a homicidal maniac. I have. What you've got here is four people who unfortunately died."

"Sir, the similarities - "

"Anybody can get a pipe. Anyone can buy a gun. There's probably a million Army issue Colts floating around the pawnshops of this fair city right now. Just because two petty criminals stepped on some toes and a colored was in the wrong place at the wrong time doesn't mean we have some new Brooklyn Vampire on our hands."

"And McLeod?"

"It's unfortunate, and I understand your desire to do something about your friend's death. But he's not our problem. His case falls under the jurisdiction of the 5th, and you have more than enough work to do here."

"Sir - "

Strauss sat back, all avuncularity suddenly gone. "Do you hear me, Detective? You're to close the Garner case, let the 5th work on the McLeod case, and focus on the _real_ crimes out there."

* * *

Hotch sat at his desk, working through paperwork with the steady determination of a machine. One piece of his mind was focused on the papers under his pen, but the rest of it gnawed away at the events of the morning.

Closed. Over. The captain himself had told him to let it go.

Was Strauss right? Was he just seeing connections because he wanted to see them?

No. Absolutely not.

But there was no connection -

No connection that he could see. It just meant he needed to dig deeper. Finks hadn't been a mugging, not by a long shot. Not with close to five dollars still in his shoe.

He would be defying a direct order.

The part of Hotch that had spent the war as an obedient link in the chain of command recoiled from that. But another part of him, a larger part, had been Doug McLeod's superior officer for nearly five years, and you damn well stood for your men, no matter what.

He glanced around, then thumbed through his notebook until he found a particular page. Then he picked up his phone and dialed. "Mr. Morgan? This is Detective Hotchner, we spoke the other day. Can you meet me this evening? No," he said, and took a breath. "Not at the precinct."

* * *

"Hey, J.J," Emily said when the door opened.

"Emily, hello. Detective Hotchner said you'd be coming. Come in."

"Thanks. Is Penelope here yet?"

"Penelope? No." J.J.'s brows drew together. "Isn't she a librarian? I thought this was a police matter."

"It is," Emily said. "A nasty one. But I talked Hotch into including her." She saw the skepticism in J.J.'s face. "I know, she's not exactly who springs to mind, and trust me, I had to lobby long and hard to get Hotch to agree to it. But Penelope knows _everybody_. She has an information network that military intelligence would be proud of."

"That I can believe," J.J. said, smiling a little.

Emily grinned back. "So who else is here?"

"So far, just you and - " J.J. tilted her head toward the dining room, indicating that Emily should look.

Her brows shot up at the sight of the chocolate-skinned man standing with Hotch, both of them frowning at the map spread out over the table. Emily had lived in New York City her whole life, so it was hardly her first time seeing a colored man, but she hadn't expected to meet one here.

"Whoa," she said. "That's unexpected. Who is he?"

"A private investigator," J.J. said, so cool and collected that Emily concluded she'd been pretty flustered before. "His name's Derek Morgan. I think he was already looking into the case. Oh, here's Penelope," she added, skirting around Emily and opening the door again.

She turned. Her friend was just climbing out of a cab, resplendent in orange and yellow and carrying a roll of bright green fabric. "Hiya," she called out, waving with her free hand. "I brought someone else to play."

Sliding out behind her, looking as if he wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten there, was a tall, lanky man with hair that hadn't seen a barber in about six years. He trailed after her as she bounced up the walk. "Meet Dr. Spencer Reid. PhD, not medical. Old friend of mine."

"Yes, almost two weeks now," Dr. Reid muttered.

Penelope ignored that and introduced Emily and J.J. He gave them awkward little waves, as if touching did not come naturally to him.

"Here's that cotton print I was telling you about," Penelope said, holding the fabric out to J.J.

As the two women bent their heads over the bundle, Emily turned to Dr. Reid and studied him for a moment. He looked as if he'd have a hell of a time ordering a beer in a bar, but he had a doctorate, so he had to be older than eighteen. Behind his thick spectacles, he had dark eyes, made darker by the shadows surrounding them. Everything about him was long and narrow, all protruding bones and sharp angles. She trusted Penelope's judgment that he'd be somehow valuable, but she couldn't help wondering how Hotch would react to his unexpected presence.

He looked over at her and grimaced faintly. Whether it was at waiting around for the cloth discussion to be done with or at being looked at, Emily couldn't tell.

She said, "So, how did Penelope rope you into this?"

"Oh, well," he said, "Mrs. Garcia told me about this case and I couldn't say no."

"You must really be interested in deranged criminals."

"No, I mean I really couldn't say no. She wouldn't let me."

Emily grinned. "So why - "

"Come on, let's go in," Penelope broke in. "Before we melt."

Inside, they found Morgan on his own, studying the map. Penelope went right and plopped herself down next to him. "Hi! I don't think we've met."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "No, ma'am. Derek Morgan."

"I'm Penelope Garcia, and don't you ma'am me. Just call me Penelope."

"Ma'am," he said again, got up, and walked away.

Penelope's smile froze on her face, then melted away. She took a breath, then looked down at her lap and smoothed her dress.

Emily sat down next to her friend. "So, this Dr. Reid of yours," she said. "Is he okay? He looks - "

Penelope grasped at the offered distraction. "Like he hasn't had a square meal since Pearl Harbor?"

"To start."

"I thought the same, but he eats like a stevedore." She nodded toward the other side of the room, where Dr. Reid had just discovered a plate of cookies. "I think he's just one of those guys who burns it all off with his brain."

"Huh. Must be nice."

"You're telling me."

Hotch came back in the room then, a file folder in hand. He frowned at Dr. Reid. "Excuse me. Who are you?"

Since his mouth was full, Penelope answered for him. "This is Dr. Spencer Reid. I invited him to our little shindig."

Hotch's eyes swung around to bore into Penelope. "Did you. And what are you a doctor of, exactly, Dr. Reid?"

He swallowed. "Uh, physics. Nuclear physics, specifically."

"I see," he said. "Mrs. Garcia. Can I talk to you for a moment?"

Emily heard his tone and cringed. She got to her feet, saying, "Sir - "

"Alone."

"Okay then," Emily murmured.

* * *

They went out in the hall, and Hotch gazed down at the sunny-faced woman. _Civilians._ They had no idea. It had been against his better judgment, but Prentiss had been so sure that he'd given in. And what did she go and do? Brought another outsider into a police matter. A physicist!

"Mrs. Garcia," he said in the low, measured tones he'd always used in a discipline situation. "You're here because Miss Prentiss assured me that you'd be useful. I realize the setting is informal and that you're here on your own time. But you need to understand the seriousness of what we're doing."

"Detective Hotchner," she said in a shocked voice. "Emily told me what was done to those poor men. I know how important this is."

"This is a murder investigation, Mrs. Garcia. It's not a _shindig_ and it's certainly not an occasion to which it is appropriate to bring a date!"

Her mouth dropped open. "Dr. Reid's not my date. He's a doctoral candidate in abnormal psychology at Columbia. He's writing his dissertation on behavioral patterns of serial murderers, and I thought he could help."

Hotch stared at her. She gazed back, biting her lip, the red flower in her hair quivering ever so slightly.

"He said he was a nuclear physicist."

"He said the doctorate he'd already earned was in nuclear physics," she said. "Which is what you asked, actually. He's very literal, sir."

Hotch digested that. "Behavioral patterns?"

"Yeah. I read some of it. Kinda lost me after the title, honestly. But it sounded really, really smart."

He breathed in and out. Civilians, civilians on his case. But one with extensive community connections and another with knowledge of the field, on a case that had already slipped through all the cracks of regular police procedure.

A case with, if he was correct, a ticking countdown clock.

"He can stay for tonight. If he proves useful, he can help. If he doesn't, he's gone." He leveled his gaze on her, making sure she knew Dr. Reid wasn't the only civilian he was talking about. "Understood?"

"Understood, sir," she said quickly.

"No more springing anything on me."

"No, sir."

* * *

Emily gave up trying to hear the conversation out in the hall and went over to where Dr. Reid was scanning through the various folders of notes. "So," she said. "Nuclear physics?"

"Yep," he said, turning a page. His free hand wandered away in search of another cookie.

"What does this have to do with nuclear physics?"

"Everything has to do with nuclear physics." Cookie obtained, he took a bite.

She nodded at the pages in his hand, a diagram of Wilton's injuries that she'd drawn. "No atom did that." She saw his mouth open and added hastily, "No _single_ atom did that."

He gave her an impressed sort of nod and turned another page, running his finger down it.

"So . . ." she prompted. "Why did Penelope nab you?"

"Probably because my current field of research is in the psychology of homicide," he said easily, as if mentioning that he liked pancakes in the morning. "It's my dissertation. I'm in the process of obtaining my doctorate in abnormal psychology."

Emily blinked. "Why?"

"Um. I found myself at loose ends and it seemed like something I'd like."

"You're getting a second doctorate because you were bored?"

"Some people make ships in bottles," Reid said.

Emily's eyes narrowed, and the corners of Reid's mouth curled up, very faintly. She was suddenly sure that this fellow wasn't quite the absent-minded professor he pretended to be.

"Quit hogging those, professor," she said, gesturing at the cookie plate.

"Actually, I don't teach any classes, so it's not really accurate to - "

"You'll do 'til one comes along. Now pass 'em over. A girl needs chocolate in her life." She took a happy bite. "So, how much did Penelope tell you?"

"Nothing, really, just that there were some murders in a similar pattern that might be the result of a serial murderer." He lifted the pages. "But reading through these, I have no doubt it's the same man. Miss Prentiss, you're the one who brought Walter Wilton to Detective Hotchner's attention?"

"Yeah," she said. "He came in on my shift."

"You characterized these as rage-fueled. Like he 'made someone mad as hell.'" He looked up. "Why?"

Taking the diagram, she pointed out the sheer sloppiness of the beating, the body parts that would have been broken by a professional, but left alone by the killer. Dr. Reid asked questions, brows drawn together, still taking bites out of his cookie every so often.

"Interesting," he said finally. "He probably knows the victims personally, or believes he does, and bears substantial grudges against them, possibly born out of envy. He might be stalking them."

Morgan, who'd been listening in, pushed the map forward. "He's definitely stalking them. Look at this."

Dr. Reid's eyes lit, and he leaned over it.

Penelope came back in, and Emily shot her friend a look of quick concern. "How you doing?"

"It's been a tough day for this girl's ego, I can tell you that," Penelope mumbled, flopping down in the chair next to her. "He can't half glare, can he?"

"You know, his boys liked him, but damn if they didn't jump when Hotch scowled. They used to measure the progress of the war by how low his eyebrows got."

That made Penelope giggle, shakily. "You realize he'll be able to balance a frying pan on those things when he's eighty?"

Emily muffled her snort when the man under discussion came back in the room, followed by the retired cop that she'd met in the diner.

"This is retired police captain Dave Rossi, everyone," Hotch said. "We can have more in-depth introductions later. Since we're all here now, this is what we've got."


	5. Chapter 5

"Randall Garner, Walter Wilton, Barney Finks, and Douglas McLeod," Hotch said, laying down a crime-scene photo as he said each name. "Four murders, within the last month, all in a limited area of the lower east side. Ambushed late at night, beaten severely, and then shot in the head. Now, except for the most recent, they've all been officially attributed to different causes, but the similarities are too marked to ignore. Miss Prentiss, can you talk about their injuries?"

While she spoke, Hotch watched the group around the table, especially the strangers. Morgan seemed unaffected until she mentioned Finks' injuries, and then he looked down at the table, rolling a pen between his fingers. Mrs. Garcia's expression had gone tight and set, as if she was just waiting to get through the gory and yet clinical descriptions. Of course, she'd heard them before. Dr. Reid listened with his brows drawn together, but a light in his eyes like a man listening to a fascinating puzzle. Hotch frowned at that momentarily.

"Bruising pattern indicates a blunt instrument," she concluded. "Most likely weapon is a metal pipe of some sort. Final cause of death, the bullet to the brain, was from a Colt .45 at close range."

"Are these all the victims?" Rossi asked. He was reading Garner's file.

"All the ones we know about," Hotch said.

Mrs. Garcia looked faintly green. "You think there's more?"

"It's clear this guy has experience," Rossi said.

"Why?" Prentiss prodded.

Rossi looked surprised to be asked. It had been a long time since anybody asked the captain to explain himself. "No signs of hesitation," he said after a second. "The blows are erratic but full-force. A single gunshot, neatly placed. No slugs in surrounding walls or the ground."

Morgan stirred. "When Garner was found, was he still alive?"

"No," Hotch said. "But not long dead. When the beat cop discovered him, the body was still warm. Neighbors heard the shot but didn't see anything. That said, it's a neighborhood where not seeing anything is a survival skill. Especially at that time of the night."

"So the killer didn't stand around admiring his work," Morgan said. "He did it and got out."

"Another sign of experience," Hotch agreed.

Mrs. Garcia asked, "What if he was . . . a hit man, or something?"

Reid sat up. "Oh, no," he said. "Not likely at all."

Hotch, who had been going to say the same thing, glanced at him. "Why?"

"Look at the blows." Dr. Reid's narrow fingers fluttered briefly over the different crime scenes before swooping down and snatching up Finks' picture. "They're wild and uncontrolled, filled with rage. The beating functions as a catharsis. People murdering for pay don't display that level of emotion. This man has personal connections with the victims. The viciousness of each beating denotes a punishment, and the final shot to the head is more like an execution than anything else. He's taking revenge."

Morgan frowned. "For what?"

"They don't have to have done anything," Dr. Reid explained. "In the case of paranoia, for instance, he might have taken a relatively minor incident between himself and the victims and exaggerated it within his mind into something much more significant, attributing malicious motives to something that grew out of mere misfortune or carelessness. But that would still imply personal contact, however brief."

"You think he's a paranoid lunatic?"

"Lunatic is an outdated term. But yes, I'm offering paranoid psychosis as a possibility in this case."

"It's one worth keeping in mind," Hotch said. "At the moment, we should concentrate on what we definitely know about this killer from the crime scenes. He's most likely a white male, young and in good physical condition, to be able to wield that pipe."

"Strong enough to break bones," Emily noted. "Could be a big, tall guy."

"Not necessarily," Rossi said. "Rage can lend even a wimpy guy a lot of strength. I musta seen it a thousand times, some nasty murder done by a fellow didn't look much stronger than Dr. Reid here."

They all looked at him.

"Um," he said uncertainly.

"He doesn't mean you," Penelope told him. "You'd talk 'em to death first, anyway."

Reid's brows quirked. "Actually, I did read of a case recently where a man literally talked people into killing themselves - "

Hotch cleared his throat. "Back to this killer."

"He's a planner," Morgan said. "He thinks ahead. He's not killing on impulse. Besides the part where he'd have to have both the pipe and the gun on him, he picked the crime scenes carefully." He touched the map, littered with dark penned notes and lightly penciled lines connecting them. "Dr. Reid and I were looking at this earlier. All the murders took place just off streets that would be a logical route home for these men. At the same time, the alleys were out of the way, nice and private. He picked them beforehand."

"So he was, what, following them?" Prentiss asked.

"Stalking them would be a better description," Reid said. "For days, possibly."

Mrs. Garcia winced.

"It's notable that he murdered Finks near his workplace, in the white part of town, rather than close to his home. This supports the idea that he's white, because he would have stood out in Harlem."

"How did he get them into the alleys?" Prentiss asked.

"He did have a gun," Rossi pointed out. "Most people will go just about anywhere when there's a gun."

"True, but the power behind those blows with the pipe required a two-handed grip. He'd have to let go of the gun in order to swing it."

Morgan was nodding before she'd finished the sentence. "If he'd forced them into the alleys using the gun, that would be the time to run or shout for help. But they didn't."

"Exactly." Prentiss held up one of her diagrams. "Plus, all of the bodies show blows to the kneecaps or legs, with at least one bone broken. My guess, that was the first blow. Knock their legs out from under them and keep bashing away while they're on the ground, until they're such a mess they can't resist or even react when he finally pulls the gun."

Something clattered, and they all looked around. Mrs. LaMontagne put a trivet and a full coffeepot down on the buffet and left the room again.

Hotch didn't speak until the door had shut behind her. "If he didn't threaten them with a gun, then that means they went willingly. Which tells us they all recognized him or didn't consider him a threat. That late at night, at least in Garner and Wilton's part of town, a man would have be _very_ nonthreatening. It's more likely, then, that they recognized him."

"Do you think they all knew him from the same place?" Morgan asked.

"Hard to say. The victims didn't have much in common."

"What do we know about them?" Rossi asked.

Hotch picked up his notes. "Randall Garner was thirty-five years old. Unmarried, no known children. Born and raised in New York City, dropped out of school as soon as he could to work a number of menial jobs on the fringes of legality. He drifted into the procurement business around 1935 and was drafted in late 1942."

"How?" Rossi asked. "The military has rules about criminal records."

"He was picked up a few times but always managed to wriggle out of an outright conviction. And by that time, they weren't looking too hard at the grey areas." Hotch referred to his notes again. "Came back to New York City in early 1946, went back to procuring, and was found dead three weeks ago."

He switched folders. "My information on Wilton isn't as good. He was thirty-four, born and raised here. Worked as a bookie. Might have had a common-law wife, there's a woman named Marnie Frank mentioned in the file at the same address. Drafted in 1943, came back at the end of 1945, went back into his old business, and was found two weeks ago."

Hotch set down his folder and said to Morgan, "What can you tell us about Barney Finks?"

"He was thirty-seven years old, born and raised in Harlem," Morgan said. "He graduated high school, class of '28. Married when he was twenty but she died in '32 and he never remarried. Reporter for a Harlem newspaper but they'd folded when he came back from the war so he waited tables at the Coconut Room while looking for work. Found dead last week."

"You said he was in the war?" Rossi asked.

"Yeah."

"Army?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Draft or volunteer?"

"Volunteer. January 1942."

Hotch nodded. "The last victim, found two nights ago, was Douglas McLeod. Thirty-one years old, married with two children. He was a high-school graduate. Enlisted in September 1941, returned to New York City in 1946, and started taking college classes on the GI bill, intending to be a doctor."

Hotch set the last piece of paper down. "So this is what we have. Three white men, one colored man. One married, one widowed, one possibly married, and one never married. Varied levels of education. Their professions ranged widely, across legal boundaries."

"What they had in common is not much to go on. They were all men, in their early to mid-thirties, born and raised in New York City, who served in the Army. Other than that, nothing."

"The Army's something," Morgan said.

"Eleven-point-two million men served in the Army during this war," Reid said. "Sixteen million in the armed forces overall."

Rossi looked at him with raised brows. "You work for the military or something?"

"What? No, I just read it somewhere."

"The point is," Hotch said, "they were in the Army, but so was half the male population between eighteen and fifty. We know they weren't in boot camp together because they all entered at different times. We'll get their units when we go back to interview more, but we know McLeod at least didn't serve with any of the others. That's a tenuous connection at best, especially given what you said about personal contact, Dr. Reid. Other possibilities?"

Mrs. Garcia spoke for the first time. "City directories will tell us past addresses. I'll get the parents' names from birth certificates, so I can see if they grew up in the same neighborhood."

"Vital Records takes forever," Rossi said.

"Not for me," she said. "Ben should get back to me by the end of the day tomorrow."

"That fast?" Hotch asked.

"I think he owes me one. Or I'll owe him one." She pursed her lips, thinking that over, and shrugged.

"Barney's ma was a domestic all while we were growing up," Morgan said. "She took him with her sometimes. Could be he knew them. I'll get some names and addresses from her."

"What about vices?" Rossi said. "What were their dirty little secrets?"

"Garner and Wilton worked in the vice industry," Prentiss said. "Same part of town. Odds were they knew each other. Could be they crossed paths with the others that way."

"McLeod wasn't a womanizer or a gambler," Hotch said.

"You can say that again," she murmured. "Clean as a whistle, that one."

"Are you sure?" Reid asked.

"Oh yeah. The only people who gossip worse than nurses are soldiers."

Hotch said, "From all accounts, Garner was a drunk, getting progressively worse over the years. Seems by the time he died, he needed a nip of gin to get up in the morning. I don't know how he covered it up in the service. Lax commanding officer, most likely. Maybe they met at a bar or similar watering hole."

"Barney didn't drink much," Morgan said. "He went through a rough time when Celeste died, but he cleaned up soon enough."

"What was the Coconut Room?" Hotch asked.

"Swank cocktail lounge," Morgan said. "Wouldn't've let a guy like Garner piss in their back alley. Pardon me, ma'am," he said to Prentiss and Mrs. Garcia.

"I've heard worse," Prentiss said. "Did he work anywhere else?"

"No, started writing for the _Harlem Star_ right out of high school."

"Before high school?"

Morgan smiled a little. "Delivered the papers. Had what you might call a one-track mind."

"We've got back issues of the _Harlem Star_ at work," Mrs. Garcia said. "I know it goes back before '28. I'll see if he ever wrote about any of the other victims."

"Do that," Hotch said. "It's a long shot, but it might pay off. What about the others? We should dig up debts, associations, more about where they worked, where they lived, arrests or brushes with the law. Just about anything could be the key to this case."

"I'll get more dirt on Wilton," Rossi said. "I might be retired, but I still got the chops."

"Morgan, you need to find out more about Finks. He's the one furthest removed from the others."

The other man nodded, tight-lipped.

"Meanwhile, I'll call around to the other precincts and see if there are any more victims."

"I'll do that," Rossi said. When Hotch opened his mouth, he said, "Strauss has already ordered you to back off this case, and he's a vindictive son-of-a-" He coughed, and Prentiss rolled her eyes very slightly. "Anyway, he hears you're asking other precincts, you'll be suspended before you can hang up the phone. What the hell can he do to me? I'm just a nosy ex-cop with too much time on my hands."

Hotch nodded.

"I'll call the hospitals, ask 'em the same question." Prentiss checked her watch. "Night shift is on right now, they'd be the ones to talk to. Unless you think there could've been some daytime victims?"

"No," Hotch said. "Between the stalking behavior Reid and Morgan picked up and the smaller amount of possible witnesses, nighttime is probably his favored killing time."

She nodded. "Just on the lower east side?"

"Try surrounding neighborhoods," Hotch said. "So far the only victims we've found have been around here, but we've encountered them mostly through serendipity."

"What about the rest of the island? Or other boroughs?"

"Unlikely," Reid said. "Like anybody else, killers tend to stick to a preferred territory."

"Got it." She left the room, and Hotch could hear her calling down the hall, asking for a phone book, before it shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mention that one of the victims enlisted in the Army in September 1941. This is not a mistake! The US did not suddenly realize there was a war happening on the morning of December 7, 1941. The military was already bulking up and a draft had even been put into effect. We'd already been arguing about whether to enter WWII long before that. Pearl Harbor was just the final kick in the pants.
> 
> Even after Pearl Harbor, many didn't think we should get involved. The Library of Congress's American Memory website has some eye-opening interviews from the day after Pearl Harbor. Use the "list all collections" option to find the one called "Pearl Harbor and Public Reactions."


	6. Chapter 6

"Uncommon assortment you've got working this," Rossi said, sorting the various gory photos back into their folders.

"These are uncommon crimes," Hotch said. "Just tonight, we've established that the usual police procedure won't uncover the truth."

"But civilians?" He nodded at Reid and Penelope, the former nabbing yet another cookie as he pored over the map with Morgan, the latter gathering up her notes with the gleam of research lust in her eyes, the flower in her hair bouncing.

"Every cop uses civilian consultants."

"Hotch, you know as well as I do that civilian consultants is the official term for snitch."

"If Mrs. Garcia is right about her connections, it'll save us days of red tape on the vital records alone."

"But will you be able to keep her around?" Rossi tapped the photos. "This stuff isn't pretty."

"Prentiss saw worse during the war," Hotch said firmly. "And she'll look after Mrs. Garcia."

"Still, there's a reason we don't have lady cops."

"You're too old-fashioned, Dave. Women have the vote now and everything."

Rossi snorted. "I was a beat cop on duty that day. Ever tried to tell a bunch of women who've just had the vote handed to them that they have to break up the party and go home now?"

"It wasn't exactly _handed_ to them," Mrs. Garcia said on her way past them.

Hotch watched the door thump closed behind her. "I told you before, I trust Miss Prentiss. She can do the job. If Mrs. Garcia's skills help, she stays too." He nodded at Reid. "And he's already given us more insight than we would have gotten on our own."

"What are his credentials anyway?"

Hotch told him what Mrs. Garcia had said, adding, "When you got here tonight, I'd just hung up with someone I know at Columbia. They seemed to think he'd help. 'Weird but brilliant,' is what Jacobson said."

"Really."

The professor had also called Reid a walking mop, which had reassured Hotch that they were talking about the same person. "A lot of what he said tonight confirmed some of my hunches on the case."

"You've always had a good gut, Hotch."

"Which is why these people are here."

Rossi lowered his voice. "Including Morgan. How well did he know Finks?"

"All he told me was that they were friends once, but no longer."

"Close friends, from the sound of it. After fifteen years, he didn't have to think twice about the name of the dead wife. And there's something about the Army service."

"Yes, I caught that too. But he's no closer to the case than I am, and I'm certainly not going to take myself off it. We need him. I don't have any contacts in the Harlem community, do you?"

"Those boys keep pretty well to themselves. Outsiders are not welcome."

"Mmmm. Couldn't hurt to drop by the Coconut Room, though."

"No," Hotch said, watching Morgan as the other man gathered up his own notes. "It couldn't."

* * *

"Thanks for checking. Let me know if one comes in, would you? Yes, right away. Okay. Right. Thanks, Greenaway." Emily hung up from her last phone call and rubbed her ear.

"Any luck?" Penelope asked from her station at the bottom of the stairs. She made a face. "I don't mean luck . . . you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know," Emily said. "Bupkis. Good news there, I guess."

"Yeah." Penelope sighed.

Emily frowned at her. "Hey. You doing okay with this? You looked shaky in there a few times."

Her friend gave a tiny shrug. "It's just . . . ugly, is all."

Emily sighed. "Trust me on this one, in the whole history of the world there's never been a pretty death."

"Yeah, but this stuff - " Penelope gestured toward the dining room where they'd examined the suffering and deaths of four men like scientists dissecting a frog. "Uglier than most."

"I'll give you that." She leaned over the telephone table and slid her hand through the railings, taking Penelope's. "Look, if you want out, I won't hold it against you."

But Penelope shook her head, her curls bouncing. "I want to help," she said. "I do. Those families, they deserve to know what happened." She sighed at the look on Emily's face. "Sweetie, you know I'm tougher than I look." She flexed her bicep. "See?"

Emily gave in to the smile. "Yeah, I see. Rosie the Riveter's got nothin' on you."

"And don't you forget it." Penelope tipped her head to one side, eyes narrowed. "Hey, gimme that phone, would you?"

"For what?"

"I'm calling us a cab. You look bushed."

"Don't do that. I can walk."

"It's dark. And you know why else."

Her eyes narrowed. "Penelope - "

The other woman crossed her arms and set her chin mulishly.

Emily shot a significant look at the dining room door.

Penelope held out her hand for the phone.

Emily sighed and passed it over, and her friend dialed a number by memory. "Mrs. Jankowski, hello! How's the night treating you, ma'am?"

Hotch came out of the dining room. "What did they say?" he asked, under cover of Penelope's chatter.

"Nothing, sir," Emily told him. "No cases. I gave them your number and mine, and J.J's, if one turned up. She said it was all right," she added when his face darkened. "I called the nearest four, but I can go further afield."

"Tomorrow's soon enough," he said. "Go home."

"Sounds good to me. I'm just going to tell J.J. goodnight and then we're gone."

In the parlor, J.J. was curled in a ratty old armchair, her shoes abandoned on the floor. Some mending sat ignored in her lap. A radio muttered to itself on the table next to her.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

The other woman looked up sharply, and then sighed. "I'd pay you to take 'em. Are you done?"

"Just now. Thanks for letting me use it. I told them not after ten if they call here."

"Thanks," J.J. said, getting to her feet. The mending slid off her lap, and she caught it, dropping it on the table. "Are you going home?"

"Pretty soon. Penelope's calling us a cab." But Emily lingered, because J.J. had that air of -

"Listen, Emily, can I ask you something?"

Ah. She'd been right then. "Sure, what?"

J.J. beckoned her further into the room. Emily went, and when they stood several feet away from the door the other woman said, "I want to know what really happened to my husband."

Emily took an involuntary step back. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"Hotch told me it was fast. That he didn't feel a thing. You said the same."

"Yes."

The younger woman's eyes were cool and direct. "Then why did he come to your field hospital?"

Emily's mouth opened, then closed.

"If he bled to death that fast, what could you have done for him?"

Emily scrambled for options. A hundred cases of severe blood loss came flicking through her mind, but none of them was Will LaMontagne. She bit her lip.

"What really happened?"

"J.J," Emily said desperately. "Wouldn't it would be better to think it was fast? That he didn't feel anything, that he didn't know what was happening?"

J.J. let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Of course," she said. "But that's not the truth, is it?"

Emily looked away, and found herself staring at a picture that had be J.J. and Will on their wedding day. Straight and proud in his uniform, Will LaMontagne looked like a little boy playing dress-up.

"Most of it was true," she said, hearing her own voice as if from a long way off. "He was wounded in battle, hit with shrapnel in the chest, stomach, and abdomen. He was brought into surgery, and we removed all the pieces. But by the time he got there, a sharp edge had already perforated the large intestine. About six hours after he was brought in, he died of fecal peritonitis."

"What is that?"

"Blood poisoning," Emily said. "Basically. It's not fast, it's not painless, and it's absolutely not pretty."

J.J. had gone pale, and she gripped her elbows hard as if to keep herself from flying apart. "I did ask," she murmured, more to herself than to Emily.

"You gonna be okay?" God, what a dumb question.

The other woman nodded, jerkily. "Can you tell Penelope good night? And thank her for the cloth for me."

"Yeah. I can do that. Sure." Emily started to go, her stomach somewhere around her knees, then stopped and turned. "Look, J.J. - "

The other woman looked up.

"Don't judge Hotch too harshly for not telling you," Emily said. "He was there for the worst part. He wanted to spare you."

J.J. shook her head. "I never asked to be spared."

* * *

In the end, Hotchner actually had to come right out and tell Dr. Reid to leave. Morgan watched with amusement. Not one for hints, it seemed. Luckily, the younger man didn't seem offended. Maybe being impervious to hints also made him unable to take offense.

Anyway, they weren't the last. Rossi had already gone, but the two women were waiting outside on the stoop. Morgan wondered for a moment why Mrs. LaMontagne wasn't waiting with them. Maybe she had to put her kid to bed.

"Hey," Mrs Garcia said, looking around as they came out the door. "I called us a cab." She gestured needlessly at the shiny black car pulling up to the curb. "You want in? He's a friend, he'll give you a break."

"I'll walk, thanks," Morgan said.

Her smile faltered. "Next time. Dr. Reid?"

"I'll walk with Morgan, if that's all right." Dr. Reid said. "I'm going that way anyway."

Miss Prentiss nodded, looking sleepy. "You got our numbers?"

They all traded numbers, writing down work and home in notebooks and scraps of paper. All except Dr. Reid, who glanced at Morgan's notebook and said simply, "I'll remember them."

Miss Prentiss swallowed a huge yawn and climbed into the patient cab. " _Dobry wieczór, Pan Jankowski_ ," she said to the driver. " _Jak si_ _ę Pan ma?"_

"What is that, Russian?" Morgan said as they walked away.

"Polish," Dr. Reid said. "Interesting language. Highly prevalent in the part of the city where Miss Prentiss works. I imagine she uses it all the time. Her accent was very good."

He glanced over as the cab trundled by. Mrs. Garcia waved at them, but Miss Prentiss was already leaned up in the corner, eyes closed. Dr. Reid waved back, a quick and awkward flap of one hand that made Morgan smile to himself. Reid reminded him of the raw cadets under his command in the Corps. All knees and elbows, some of them, not just physically but emotionally too, stumbling through the world like a puppy, with the sheen of naivete on them like a coat of paint.

That got knocked out of them pretty quick. How had this guy hung onto it?

Maybe the kid had never been in battle. Not everybody in the service went into combat.

He decided to quit speculating and go to the horse's mouth. "So, where did you serve? Europe or the Pacific?"

"Hmm?"

Morgan gestured. "Those frames. Government issue."

"Oh," Dr. Reid said, pushing them up his nose with one finger. "I, uh, I worked for the government, but I wasn't in the military. I spent the war stateside. Research."

"What kind of - "

"Mrs. Garcia is a very nice person, you know," Dr. Reid said abruptly.

"I don't doubt," Morgan said.

"I think maybe her feelings were hurt, the way you talked to her."

Morgan let out his breath. He had the guilty feeling that if this kid, with all the social skills of a box turtle, had noticed, he'd been _really_ rude. But - "Look. Nothing personal, okay? She's a sweet girl. Hell, she's a pistol. It's just that some people aren't so good for other people. Not because of anything they do. Just because of what they are."

"New York has never had miscegenation laws."

Well, hell, that was the truth with no frills on it. "Don't mean I wouldn't be in a world of hurt with some folks for tangling up with her. It's a long way from not saying you can't marry a woman to just letting you run around with them."

Dr. Reid made a humming noise in his throat. "I still think you should be nicer."

"And I think she's a big girl and doesn't need everybody to be her best friend."

They walked on, silent for a few more blocks.

"New York City has seen a huge growth in Eastern European immigrants in the last sixty years. Polish and other nationalities account for most of the population in the lower east side," Dr Reid said.

"Yeah," Morgan said, baffled. How the hell had they gotten back to talking about Polish?

Dr. Reid didn't seem to need a partner for his discussion of immigration-related statistics, just an ear. Morgan made vague "huh," and "yeah" responses every so often and arguing with himself. If he was going to be honest, he knew why he'd waited around for Reid when he could have been on his way half an hour ago. He was just nervous about getting into this conversation with a doctoral candidate, when he'd never so much as stepped foot in an undergrad lecture.

"So," Morgan said into the first split second of silence. "What do you think of Skinner?"

"B.F. Skinner?"

"No, my boy Sam Skinner from down the block. Yeah, B.F. Skinner. Behavioralism and pigeons and all that."

"Hmm. Well, I thought the basic theory behind _The Behavior of Organisms_ was interesting but reductive. It didn't take into account human cognitive functions. Have you read it?"

"I read it before the war," Morgan said. "And I agreed with you then. But I went to the South Pacific, and one thing you learn there, is how damn quick we make associations to stimuli when those that don't get their fool heads blown off."

Behind his glasses, Reid's eyes lit up. "For example?"

"The Japs had these planes they dropped their bombs from. Their engines and props had this particular sound, I can't imitate it exactly but we all knew it. The first time I heard it, I went, 'The hell is that, a mosquito?' And my chief knocks my ass on the ground half a second before a good acre of jungle blows up." Morgan shook his head. "After a couple of 'em, that sound doesn't even stop at your brain, it goes right to your muscles. If I heard it now, in the middle of the city, nowhere near the jungle, _bam._ On the ground."

"I imagine," Reid murmured, sounding shaken. "But you can overcome this conditioning. We're human beings, not animals, and even if you did initially react in that way, you quickly realize that you're not about to be blown up and eventually that reaction would cease."

"I don't know," Morgan said. "Seems like I'd just be conditioning myself out of the prior conditioning." He grinned. "Gets you coming and going."

"Have you read much Jung?"

"Only what I could get my hands in English."

" _Psychology of the Unconscious_ and _Psychological Types_?"

"Yeah, plus a couple of articles that friends translated for me. My German's pretty rusty. But I saw him speak here in the city . . . must be ten years ago. Dynamite."

"He spoke at Yale while I was there, and I concur, it was very exciting. I've got a rough translation of his _The Psychology of Dementia Praecox_ if you want it."

They walked on through the darkening city, jumping from psychologist to psychologist. They discussed Rogers' theories about psychotherapy, argued over Skinner some more, and decided together that Freud, while important, was seriously disturbed.

"Like to see _his_ relationship with his ma," Morgan said.

They'd stopped on a corner. Morgan would go one way, into Harlem, and Reid another, up toward the west side.

Morgan looked down the dark streets, punctuated with circles of yellow streetlamp light. "You gonna be okay by yourself from here, kid?"

"Oh, I'll be fine."

"'Cuz I can wait around until you find a cab."

"No need, I assure you. It doesn't look like it, but I'm a very fast runner."

Morgan laughed a little. "No, it doesn't look like it at all. As long as you're sure."

"Very," Dr. Reid said.

"G'nite, then."

"Night." He set off, tucking his hands into his pockets.

Morgan watched him for a few moments before calling out, "Reid! Hey, Reid!"

He stopped and turned. "Yes?"

"Did you help build the bomb?"

Reid's head dipped very slightly. "Yes."

It had been a guess, and not a totally wild one, given Reid's previous doctorate. But the thought of the sheer brainpower he'd just been arguing psychological theory with took Morgan's breath away. "Wow," he said stupidly. "That was . . . that was a hell of a thing, you know?"

"It was a monumental achievement of science, yes."

"Forget science. Do you know how many American lives that saved?"

The other man lifted his head, and the light bounced off his glasses to create two blank circles in front of his face. "How many people _didn't_ die?" He turned and started walking again. For a moment, Morgan thought he was going to leave it at that, but his voice floated back through the air. "That's not quantifiable."


	7. Chapter 7

Emily managed to escape Dr. Hightower's office without getting her ass groped, but it was a near thing. Old goat, she thought, shoving her notes on Barney Finks' death under her arm. She wouldn't miss him when she left.

As she cut through the lobby, the receptionist waved her over. "Emily, phone for you."

"Who is it?"

"A detective, he said. You in trouble?"

"Not more than usual." She scooted around the desk and reached for the handset.

Dolores didn't give it up right away, warning in a low voice, "Make it quick, Matron is zooming around on her broom."

"Thanks. This is Nurse Prentiss," she said into the handset as Dolores stepped away to answer a question.

"Prentiss, Hotch. Does the hospital keep patients' personal effects?"

"If the cops don't take 'em, we try to get them back to the family, but it's not a quick process. You want me to check and see if they're here?"

"Just Wilton's. We have the rest. Dr. Reid called me to say the killer might have taken trophies or left items on the bodies."

Emily's face screwed up at the thought. "I'll see what I can do, sir."

"Thank you. Did you find anything out from Hightower?"

"Nothing startling. Same pattern as the others. I'll fill you in tonight." A familiar step sounded behind her, and Emily straightened up. "Sir, the patient you're inquiring about was released this morning."

"I assume you have to go," Hotch said, and hung up.

"Thank you for calling." She hung up and turned around. "Yes, Matron Bartle, did you need me?"

The matron eyed her. "Nurse Prentiss, personal calls while you're on duty are strictly forbidden."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll keep that in mind if I ever feel the urge to make one."

"Good." Although the look she gave Emily before she left was anything but good.

* * *

By night, Rossi imagined, the Coconut Room would look sophisticated and elegant. By the harsher light of day, it merely looked brittle and tawdry.

The owner answered his questions while doing inventory in a back room. Finks had only worked there a few months. He was a hard worker, but kept to himself. There wasn't anybody, customer or staff, that had a beef with him. "I'm sorry he's dead," Owens said, "but I've got work to do, okay?"

Rossi hadn't questioned anybody in years. He'd forgotten how much of a pain in the ass it could be. Damn, did he wish he still had his badge, to stick in this guy's snotty face. "Was there anybody who started coming here a lot recently? Somebody who always asked to be seated in Finks' section, or near his section? Or somebody asking questions about him?"

"Just you."

"Ever heard the names Walter Wilton, Randall Garner, or Doug McLeod?"

"Who the hell are they?"

About what he'd expected.

"Can I talk to your staff?"

"Don't keep them from their work."

Oh, yeah, he missed his badge. His gun, too.

In the lounge, Rossi found a group of waiters, folding napkins, and started asking questions. He didn't get too far before one of them said, "Sir, we already told the other fella all this."

"Crompton," one of the others muttered. "Can't you tell he's a cop?"

"Didn't show us his badge, did he?" Crompton looked back at Rossi. "Maybe you should compare notes with him. Guy name of Morgan. You know him?"

Rossi nodded. "We've met. He talk to Owens?"

"Ha," Crompton said.

"One last question," Rossi said. "Did Finks ever talk about his time in the Army?"

This got him a blank look from every man there. Crompton said, "He was in the Army?"

_Interesting._

Rossi found his way to the kitchens, where Morgan was just finishing up his questioning of the cook. His brows jumped slightly when he spotted Rossi, but otherwise he remained cool. "Rossi."

"Morgan. Just thought I'd see the place."

"Me too," Morgan said neutrally. "Already interviewed most of the staff, except for the owner."

"Save yourself the trouble, son, I got him." Rossi noted the slight narrowing of Morgan's eyes at the "son," but pretended he didn't. "Any luck?"

"A few of them knew Wilton or Garner, but not from here. They all said Barney didn't know 'em. Zilch on McLeod."

Rossi nodded. "Any new regulars? Anybody following him?"

"Nope. Nobody asking about him, either, that anybody remembers."

"Owens told me the same. Where you headed from here?"

"Gonna take a walk to where Barney was found."

"I'll go with you."

"Suit yourself." Morgan led the way through the kitchens. "This is the staff exit. He left through here that night."

When the door closed behind them, Morgan stopped and looked around. "So," he murmured, mostly to himself. "I'm waiting out here."

"More likely on the street," Rossi said, and watched Morgan's eyes narrow again. He gestured. "Back here, you're more noticeable. The only people with a reason to be back here are the place's staff, so any stranger stands out."

"Mmm." Morgan went toward the street, and looked up and down it. "Stay here a minute, would ya? Right here at the mouth of the alley."

Rossi leaned against the wall, mildly amused at the order. He'd trained too many youngsters, including one Aaron Hotchner, to be offended at this one. He watched Morgan pace up and down the street, checking out shaded doors and nooks, and garnering a number of suspicious looks from nightclub owners starting their day. He missed his badge again.

Morgan came back. "There's only a few spots where I can see you," he said. "And only one of them would be logically deserted that time of the morning."

"Make a note of it. We'll come back. What did your friend do when he left work?"

"According to the other waiters, went that way with a group." He pointed down the street. "Walk, I'll follow. See how close he'd have to be."

"Ah," Rossi said. "Maybe we want to switch places." He tilted his head at one particularly beady-eyed man, standing in his doorway with his arms crossed.

Morgan blinked, then nodded. "Yeah. Maybe."

They retraced Finks' route. Rossi tried to imagine this street at nighttime, closing down hours after the rest of the city. Two in the morning wasn't even so late by this district's standards. The Coconut Room may have closed, but others would have been open. He took note of the places they passed, none of which were mentioned in the official report. If Detective Cox had been under his watch, he would have been busted so far down he would have counted himself lucky to be on goddamn traffic duty.

Morgan stopped at a corner and allowed Rossi to catch up. "Half a block, then?"

"Maybe. Or less, in the dark."

"Three of the waiters walked this far with him," Morgan said. "Then he kept going while they caught a bus."

"Why didn't Finks? It's not exactly a hop, skip, and a jump back to Harlem from here."

"The way the bus routes run, it would take almost as long to ride as to walk," Morgan said. "And he liked walking. Always did."

Rossi looked away, down the street, and waited until Morgan spoke again. "The scene's a block that way."

Now they were passing stores with closing times closer to sunset than sunup. There were apartments above most, but they found the crime scene in a windowless alley. It hadn't rained for close to three weeks, and a patch of the alley's wall was still speckled with dark spots. Morgan stood looking at them for several moments, then down at the ground. Rossi wondered if he could picture his friend's mangled body on the concrete.

He took in a breath and turned on his heel, heading for the mouth of the alley. "So," he muttered. "He catches up with Barney on the street. Hey, how ya doin', remember me? Gets him in here. He's got a gun and a pipe both." He held up his hands, one as if holding a gun, the other as if wielding the pipe. "Where did he keep them so Barney didn't spot them right off?"

"Gun's not hard to hide," Rossi pointed out.

"But a pipe is, especially one long enough and heavy enough to inflict that kind of damage. Trenchcoat?"

"The mercury hit ninety-seven that day, and muggy. Like breathing wet cotton." He'd had to take Irene to the hospital because her asthma kicked up. It had scared the hell out of him. "Even at two in the morning, it woulda still been hellish."

"Yeah. You're right. He had to have left it here." Morgan walked in a few paces, then reached out to run his fingers down a dull metal drainpipe. Against the red brick, it described a straight line up the building, clearly visible. "Lean it up against the wall here, right next to this one, nobody'd spot it from the alley but you'd know right where it was, even in the dark." His hand curled around an imaginary pipe.

"Miss Prentiss mentioned he'd need both hands for the pipe," Rossi pointed out.

"Right. First blow to the leg." He swung, so hard he grunted. Rossi felt the breeze of his clenched hands, passing by.

"To drop him," Rossi said. "And then, most likely overhand blows once Finks is on the ground for more power."

Morgan straightened up. "Not quiet," he said. "None of it." He looked around. "But we already know that these places were closed up."

"There are apartments," Rossi pointed out. "Night like that, you'd have every window open."

"Mama on a two a.m. feeding or a restless sleeper might've heard something. Especially the gunshot."

"Plus, the places around us are open now. Killer had to leave the pipe there sometime."

"You thinking he did it during the day?"

Rossi headed for the mouth of the alley. "Evening's more likely. Let's go find out how late they're open."

* * *

When Hotch got home, juggling Wilton's and Garner's personal effects, he found Mrs. LaMontagne in the dining room, frowning at two more boxes.

"Captain Rossi dropped this off earlier," she told him. "And Mr. Morgan that one."

"Ah. Thank you." He set his two down, forming a row of dead men's things across the polished surface of the table. He'd meant to have a look at their contents before the others arrived, but he was loath to do so in front of his landlady.

"Will they be here again tonight?"

"Yes." He remembered the supply of coffee and cookies she'd provided, and could tell by the smell that she'd baked again. "Mrs. LaMontagne, I know things have been tight with just me renting here. I want to thank you for welcoming my - " He paused, struggling with terminology. "My friends here. I can give you some extra money this month to make up for the coffee and the baking."

"Thank you. That would help."

He nodded and turned back to the boxes, pulling a list off the top of the first one.

From behind him, she said, "And you can also do me the courtesy of telling me what's going on."

His hand clenched briefly around the first list, crinkling the paper. "It's a police matter."

"Most police matters don't take place in my dining room. Nor do they include a nuclear physicist, a nurse, a librarian, and a colored private investigator. Any three of you people would be the first line of a bad joke. What _is_ this?"

"Dr. Reid is here in his capacity as a student of psychology."

"As I said."

He set the paper down and turned. "Mrs. LaMontagne, they're civilian consultants on a police matter, and - "

"You keep saying that. If it's a police matter, why aren't you at the station?"

"My superior is . . ." He grimaced. "Not in agreement with me that the murders are connected."

She let out her breath. "So they are purposeful murders, and not just robberies that went wrong."

He gritted his teeth, annoyed at having let that slip.

"At least," she continued, "you're so convinced of that, you come home after a full day of hunting other criminals, and you put in more hours doing this."

"Four men are dead, including one who was under my command. If the killer follows pattern, there'll be more soon. I'm not going to let that happen. You don't need to worry," he said, more gently. "I won't let this touch you or Henry."

"You can't make that promise," she said. "It's already touched us. We know the McLeod family. Henry's played with Corrina." She tangled her fingers for a moment, then pulled them apart and put her hands straight down at her sides, shoulders back. There was something familiar about the stance, but her words distracted him. "I spoke to Annabelle today. I want to help."

"That's very kind of you," he said. "But I don't foresee any capacity in which you could be of assistance."

"What about the funeral? It's tomorrow. I'm going anyway. I could talk to her, find things out - "

"I'll be doing that."

She let out her breath. "I'm sure you're more than able to talk to the men, sir, but Annabelle is a different matter. You can talk to her, and maybe you should, but I'll get more."

"Because you know her?"

"Army families have their own sphere, different even from their fathers and husbands. And another Army widow? Sir, it's a sisterhood in all but blood. Even though he didn't die in combat, it's as sudden and shocking as if he had. Worse, because he was home." She must have seen something flicker in his face. "Do you really want to risk missing something because the wrong person asked her?"

He let out a breath. "Very well."

"Thank you. And I want to sit in tonight. If I'm going to know what to listen for, I'm going to have to know the details of these men's deaths."

"They're not pretty," he warned.

"My husband died after being poisoned by the contents of his own bowels. Yes, Emily told me," she said to his sharp look. "I asked her to. I can handle ugly."

Hotch looked down at the boxes, and then up at the ceiling. "Where's Henry?"

"Listening to the radio. He's deaf to anything but Fibber McGee and Molly."

He closed the door anyway. "The first victim was found four weeks ago . . ."

* * *

Emily hit the stairs at quarter after five, lecturing herself that it wasn't _that_ far to the subway and a cab was a needless indulgence, especially right now when she had better things to do with her paycheck, but _oh shit_ was she tired, and the day wasn't over yet.

Dolores waved at her from the desk. "Em, phone call."

"Christ on a crutch, what now?"

"The night matron from Sacred Heart. She asked for you, but I'll pass it on to someone else. Go home."

It took a moment to percolate, and then all the tired fell away. "No, I'll take it."

"Your shift ended fifteen minutes ago," Dolores pointed out.

"Yeah, well," Emily said, and grabbed the phone. "Nurse Prentiss."

"Prentiss? Greenaway. I was thinking about your call last night, and someone came to mind."

Emily's eyes narrowed. "Tell me more."


	8. Chapter 8

Greenaway met Emily in the lobby. Tall and slender, with heavy-lidded dark eyes, she looked like she should be smoldering at Humphrey Bogart from behind a haze of cigarette smoke. Emily knew her by reputation as a tough and savvy nurse who'd left the Corps as a Captain.

"He's up in the psych ward," Greenaway said. "Fifth floor." She handed over a patient record, and Emily flipped through it as they waited for the elevator. It all sounded the same, she thought, her heart beating faster. The blows, the bruising, the number of broken bones. This doctor thought it had been a pipe too.

"How extensive is the brain damage?" she asked as they got on the elevator.

"Pretty bad," Greenaway said. "He's relearning how to speak, but it's a slow process, and his mental faculties are permanently damaged."

"Is it actual amnesia?"

"We think he knows who he is, he just can't communicate it to us. We're hoping that as he relearns speech he'll be able to say his name at least."

Emily thought of the injuries she'd seen in the victims and figured that sounded right. "No evidence of a bullet wound at all?"

"Not on him. You'd have to talk to the cop that investigated to see if there's one that went astray."

"Got a name?"

"After five weeks? Detective from the 5th. Something like Krasinski, Krabosky. Sorry."

"That's enough to start with."

The doors opened on the third floor to let someone on. Emily, glancing out into the corridor, saw a familiar shape and took half a step forward. "Dr Reid?"

The doors closed again, and Greenaway looked at her strangely. "Who?"

"Thought I saw someone I knew," she said, still staring at the seam in the elevator doors.

"There's no Dr. Reid at this hospital."

"It's not medical, it's a Ph.D, but I don't know what he'd be doing here." She rubbed her temple. "Never mind. Long day, I'm seeing things. I've only met him once anyway." She looked back at the patient file. "What else do you know about your John Doe?"

"At a guess, late twenties to maybe thirty." The bells dinged for the fifth floor, and they got off. "Young and strong, which is helping with his recovery but makes it even more of a puzzle who put him in his current state." Greenaway nodded to her nurses at the desk, who had sprung to attention when she entered. "Evening, Nurse Kramer. This is Nurse Prentiss, from Mercy General. Where's our John Doe?"

"In the lounge, ma'am."

"Good day?"

"So far."

They went into a lounge, awash with the yellow light of the summer's evening. A few patients sat around the room, attended by more nurses. Greenaway turned toward the young man in the wheelchair who sat by a window in the far corner of the room. "There he is."

Emily studied him. He was sandy-haired, pale and very thin, but in the way of someone who had been ill and lost weight rather than someone who was just built that way. There were a few wounds going to scars on his face. Both legs were encased in plaster, propped up before him, and from the thin, toneless look of his arms in the pajama sleeves, Emily knew that those casts had just come off. His head was bent over a piece of knitting. His fingers moved slowly but surely in the routine of yarn and needles.

"His fine motor control is recovering well, at least," Emily noted. "Who thought of that?"

"One of my girls. It was a good thought. But it also serves another purpose."

"Filling up the time?"

"That, and - oh, there he goes."

He came to the end of a long row and set the needles, one empty and one full, in his lap. He gazed out the window for several seconds, then his brow furrowed, and one hand drifted up to tap at his breastbone. His fingers walked up his chest, brushing his throat and neck, and then plucking at the exposed skin of his chest, across and down and around, apparently aimless.

"What's he doing?" Emily murmured.

"We don't know. But if he doesn't have something else to concentrate on, he'll do that for hours." And indeed, there were scabs, peeking above the vee of his hospital-issue pajamas, as if he'd scratched long enough to draw blood.

Greenaway went to his side and gently pulled his hand away. "John," she said.

He dragged his eyes toward her and made a low, forlorn noise.

"John, I want you to meet someone."

Emily approached. He looked at her, and then his gaze wandered away again. His pale eyes had a hazy expression, as if he were connected to the world by a thin thread.

She crouched next to him, taking his hand to keep his focus on her. "My name is Emily. I'm working with the police. I have some questions, just yes or no. I need you to answer them for me. Can you do that?"

After a moment, he nodded.

She pulled a chair over. "I know John isn't your real name, but I'm going to keep using it if that's okay."

He nodded again.

"Do you know who did this to you?"

His brows knitted. His shoulders lifted in a shrug.

"You're not sure?" Trauma often produced amnesia around a specific event, particularly head trauma. Perhaps he remembered hazy pieces of the attack, but nothing substantial. "Okay. We'll leave that aside. How old - " She reframed her question. "Are you less than thirty?"

His brow furrowed again. He started to shake his head, changed it to a nod, and stopped mid-motion, face working in distress.

"He has trouble with numbers," Greenaway murmured. "Part of the brain damage. He can't seem to conceptualize anything bigger than ten. John, don't worry about it."

He pulled his hand out of hers to scratch at his neck again. Emily recaptured it, gently. "It's okay, I don't need to know that. Let's go on to something else." She looked down at his hands, which were callused, the nails trimmed down to the quick by the nurses. No band of white skin around his third finger. She should give him something he could answer. It would make him feel more in control. "Are you married?"

He shook his head, confirming what she'd thought.

She read his face. "You got a girl?"

No again, with a shy look.

Emily smiled at him. "Lucky me then, right?" The distress had melted away, and his hand lay relaxed in hers. "Were you in the war, John?"

He nodded once. Proudly.

"Thank you for your service, soldier," she said softly. "Are you still in the military?"

Slow shake of the head. His free hand drifted toward his neck. Emily took that, too.

"Were you in the Army?"

Yes.

"Were you commissioned?"

Wrinkled nose. Head shake. Pull at his hands.

"Enlisted man, then." Using the same patient yes-or-no technique, she got out of him that he'd been a corporal who'd served in the European theater. But he pulled at his hands more the longer she questioned, and Emily knew he was getting frustrated at the slow communication. Suddenly, he yanked both hands free, and started clawing at his neck again.

"Okay, we're done," Emily said, grabbing up the knitting needles from his lap. "John? You hear me? You don't have to answer any more questions. Here." She caught his hands and guided the needles and yarn into them. "Here."

But he flung them away, so they clattered against the wall. The yarn ball bounced away, leaving a trail of yarn behind it. She had to grab both his hands then, or he might have torn his own throat out.

Greenaway yanked a syringe out of her pocket, but he was wrestling so hard that they couldn't control him until another nurse dashed over. With her help, they were able to control him long enough for the matron to administer the tranquilizer. He struggled for a few more minutes, but Emily could feel the tension leaving his wrists as it took effect.

Finally, he sagged in his chair, his eyes still wild and distressed. Emily set his hands down in his lap, wishing she could thank him but knowing he wasn't capable of hearing it right now.

"Take him back to his room, Mathis," Greenaway told the nurse who'd run over. "I think he's about done for the night."

His head drooped to one side as Mathis took him away.

"Sorry," Emily muttered to Greenaway, who shook her head.

"Don't be. He was doing pretty well for awhile there," she said. "You got some new stuff out of him. What are you doing over at Mercy?"

"Trauma, mostly." Emily answered absently, her mind working hard. She touched her collarbone, then her neck.

"Trauma nurses at Mercy help with murder investigations?"

"I'm sort of off the clock on this one. Listen, you got a phone I can use?"

* * *

Mrs. Garcia arrived with a long list of negatives. The victims hadn't grown up in the same neighborhoods, nor had they lived close to each other at any time in their lives. When Morgan came with names and addresses from Finks' mother, it turned out she had never worked for the families or even close to them. Even Mrs. Garcia's brainstorm about Finks and the _Harlem Star_ hadn't produced any results. 

"This still helps," Hotch told her disappointed face.

"Oh, I know all about the value of narrowing the search, sir," she said. "I'd've just really liked it if I'd gotten to say 'Eureka!'"

"You very rarely get to say 'Eureka' in police work," Hotch said dryly, marking things off on his list. "Good job, Mrs. Garcia. Thank you. Rossi, anything new about Wilton?"

"A little. In addition to his regular work, it appears he was something of a petty thief as well. I got that from associates, to start, and when I went to his place, his lady was wearing a month's worth of rent on her wrists. But she hadn't heard any of your names, except for Garner."

"How did he know Garner?"

"Not like you're thinking. From the sounds of it, Wilton didn't drink much. Have to keep your wits about you in his lines of work. He knew of Garner more than knew him, sounds like."

Hotch tapped his fingers against the table. "What about his service?" he asked.

The phone rang, and J.J. went to get it as Rossi flipped through his notebook.

"He was a private first class. 4th Infantry."

"They were in Europe."

"That's what she said. Close to you?"

"Once or twice. Morgan, were you able to discover the unit that Finks served in?"

"Uh - "

"Hotch," J.J. interrupted, coming back in the room. "It's Emily. She's at Sacred Heart."

"A fifth victim?"

"Sort of. She'll tell you."

Five minutes later, Hotch said, "Yes. Of course. Thank you." The doorbell rang, and he stretched the cord so he could open it for Dr. Reid. "See you shortly." He hung up and strode back into the dining room. "Listen up. We need to go through all the boxes again. Check every pocket, shake out every seam."

"What're we looking for?" Reid asked, following him into the room.

"Prentiss thinks the killer is taking their dog tags." 

* * *

By the time Emily arrived, the rest of them had gone through every box twice over, and called the families and closest witnesses. No tags.

"The Franks woman said Wilton sometimes carried his around to gain people's confidence," Rossi told her.

"His mother said Barney carried his for luck," Morgan added. "Cop told them the killer took them so he couldn't be identified."

"According to his neighbor," Hotch said, "Garner wore his as a matter of habit. It helped when he blacked out away from home." He frowned. "But Doug didn't carry his tags. He put them away."

"I think the killer got them anyway," J.J. said, coming back in from her conversation with Annabelle McLeod. "She said they had a break-in the morning after her husband died. The thief took Doug's lockbox. They found it yesterday morning in some garbage cans. Everything else was still in there, but the tags were gone."

"I think that rules out any practical reasoning," Rossi said. "Taking them off his neck or out of his pocket is one thing, but burglary? Guy wants 'em bad."

"Why?" Morgan asked.

Reid's eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "Mrs. LaMontagne, you wear your husband's tags."

J.J's hand went to the high neck of her dress. "How did you - "

"The military-issue bead chain is highly distinctive. May I see them?"

She hesitated, but after a moment, she pulled the chain out from under her dress and up over her head. The tags clinked musically against each other as she passed them over.

"Thank you." He set them down in the center of the table.

"Didn't you want to examine them?"

"No," he said. "I wanted to see your reaction to the request."

"And?" Hotch said coldly.

"To this killer," Reid explained, "it's clearly very important that his victims not have their tags anymore, even if they're dead." He pointed at the tags. "These are meant to identify bodies on the battlefield." He nodded at Emily. "Or casualties in a medical ward. They're practical items. But your reaction was not practical, Mrs. LaMontagne, it was emotional. As were all of yours. To anybody in contact with the military, these are highly potent symbols."

"If this man is a soldier, taking their tags would be an act of disrespect," Emily said. "Contempt. Which would fit the rage."

Hotch said, "This city is filled with military and ex-military. Two of them are in this room. Three if you count Rossi's service in the first world war. He could probably attack a man every night with no problem. But he focuses on these men. He picked them. Why?"

Rossi said, "We already know that Wilton and Garner were less than ideal soldiers. Wilton was a petty thief, Garner a drunk. Definitely not ideal behavior for the uniform."

Hotch objected. "McLeod was a good man, though. I never knew of any discipline problems with him or with the squad he led."

"Did he ever make bad decisions?" Reid asked.

"Every soldier has. It's a risk you take in command."

"This killer isn't reasonable. He may have focused on one mistake and blown that up in his mind to something worth killing over."

"Or," Morgan said, "the reason was some secret of McLeod's."

Rossi said gently, "For example?"

Morgan looked away from him. "You can't pass this on. Any of you."

"This is about Finks, isn't it?" Emily asked.

"You need to promise," Morgan insisted.

Hotch studied him. "It won't leave this room."

Morgan took in a deep breath. "Barney's unit - he was in the 127th Infantry."

Emily's mouth fell open. She darted a quick look at Hotch. His face was unreadable.

Penelope looked puzzled. "I don't - um. What does that mean?"

Emily said, "The 127th wasn't a colored unit."

Morgan said, "No, it wasn't."

Hotch asked, "Was he sent in during the Bulge?" It had been the only time black and white soldiers fought in the same units, and Army gossip said that the higher-ups had a blowout to equal the bombing of Berlin over it.

"No, sir, he wasn't."

"What would have happened if someone found out?" Reid asked. "I assume he would have been punished."

"Court-martial," Hotch said flatly. "And a dishonorable discharge at the very least."

"Yeah," Morgan said. "Just like he was a rapist or a murderer or some other scum who didn't - " He stopped.

Emily's scalp prickled.

"Who didn't deserve to be a soldier," Morgan said.

Rossi nodded. "He's targeting soldiers who don't measure up to his ideal."

"They didn't get caught or punished by the Army, so he's doing it himself," Emily said.

"The beating expresses his contempt, and possibly also his rage that they were never caught before this," Reid said. "The gunshot, it's an execution. And the tags -"

"He's saying, you don't deserve these," Morgan said, picking the tags up from the center of the table. "You can't have these."

"The killings are at regular intervals," Hotch said. "There's no variation as he looks around for another victim. He's already got a list in mind, and he's hunting them down."

They all stood staring at the silver tags swinging from Morgan's hand, flashing as they turned in the light.

A small, shaky voice broke the silence. "Um. Eureka?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical Note: In a piece of if-you-don't-laugh-you'll-cry irony, the United States fought history's most infamous racist with a rigidly segregated military. Google "Jim Crow and Black Segregation" for the most useful article I found, which includes a summary of the blowup over mixed units in the Battle of the Bulge.


	9. Chapter 9

Rossi broke the silence. "So we know why. How does this help us find who?"

"It helps enormously," Reid said. "From this, we can infer certain things about him that will help us narrow the search. What we're looking for then is a man who's absolutely dependent on the Army for his sense of self."

"Great," Emily said. "So we only have eleven million suspects."

"It is the Army model," Hotch said. "Break a civilian down and build him back up again into a soldier."

But Reid shook his head. "This goes beyond that. In his mind, adherence to military protocol is paramount. Violation of it justifies, even demands an execution." He narrowed his eyes, still for a moment. Emily could almost hear the wheels whirring. "He's probably young. Younger than the men he attacked. He envies them, remember. In a way he looks up to them, in another he's angry that they haven't lived up to his ideals."

"Are you sure it was a soldier?" J.J. asked. "Military protocol, dependent on the Army, yes, I know. But who would do that to a man they'd served with?"

"She's got a point," Rossi said. "It's been thirty years and I could still tell you the name of every guy in my squad. I'd say soldiers are more likely to cover up for each other than punish like this."

"Really?" Reid asked.

"Oh, yes," Hotch said. "You have to become a tight-knit unit in order to function in battle. I heard of replacement soldiers going AWOL to rejoin their old units rather than obeying orders and going to the new one they'd been assigned."

Morgan looked up. "Replacement soldiers?"

"During the early days of the war," Hotch explained, "when soldiers were wounded and then cleared for battle again, they weren't sent back to their old units. Instead, they were sent to whichever one was closest and needed the manpower."

Morgan made a face as if he'd just bitten into a rotten onion. "That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. And that's saying something, from the Army."

Hotch's eyes narrowed at him briefly. "It was a highly efficient model, until you factored in that you were dealing with men, not dominoes. The replacements only managed to become a real part of the unit about half the time. They felt left out. The soldiers who'd been there longer resented them for replacing a buddy, who himself might be in another hospital or replacement depot somewhere, waiting to be sent out to yet a different unit. Most often, what happened was they were wounded quickly and shuttled back to the hospital and from there, the replacement depot to start the cycle all over again."

"We used to get them all the time," Emily put in. "You could tell. They were usually pretty pissed off, too, at someone who hadn't had their back in battle. I mean, who're you going to save, your pal for the past six months or the guy who just came in two weeks ago?"

"Pissed off enough to beat somebody with a pipe and then shoot them in the head?" Rossi asked.

Emily thought back to some of the men who'd come through her field hospital. "Yeah," she said definitely. "I think so."

"That would explain his fanatical devotion to Army protocol combined with his willingness to kill men he'd served with," Reid said, his words tumbling out as if he thought he might forget them. "If he kept getting bounced from unit to unit, he was never able form the bonds that you speak of. New officers, new fellow soldiers, new ways of doing things all the time. What remained the same were the rules of the Army." He turned to Hotch. "Do you remember any of the replacements you got?"

Hotch shook his head. "There were so many. I remember most of my regular men, but I couldn't vouch for the replacements. And that wouldn't tell us which other units they were in. We need to get into Army records."

Penelope visibly perked up. "Let me at that haystack, sir. I'll find your needle."

"It's not that easy, Mrs. Garcia. Odds are they're still classified."

"Well, how classified can they be? The war's over."

"This is the Army," J.J. said. "They classify the color of their underwear until such time as it needs to become common knowledge."

Hotch's eyes rested thoughtfully on her for a moment. "My unit was out of Fort Hamilton," he said. "Most of the ones in the Northeast were. I'll call over there and see what I can do."

* * *

They combed through everything they had while Hotch was on the phone, looking at it with new eyes. "It's really too bad you weren't able to get more out of the man in the hospital," Reid said thoughtfully.

Emily said, "He couldn't even tell me his age, much less spit out name, rank, and serial number."

"Why did this guy leave him alive?" Rossi asked.

"It's the earliest crime that we know of," Reid said. "It's not uncommon for a killer to start with minor offenses and ramp up to actual murder."

Emily glared. "You call that minor?"

He looked surprised. "Comparatively, yes."

Hotch came back in, brows lower than ever. "I was able to confirm all the units came out of Hamilton," he said, "but I have to make an official request for access to the archives."

J.J. frowned. "That could take days to go through."

"I know. I've left messages for every superior officer I remember, but I don't know who might get back to me. We need someone who can cut through red tape faster than that."

Emily looked at Penelope. "Anything?"

"Oh, sweetie, most of my military ties are Navy. I do know a first sergeant with an impressive resume, but I'll have to track him down again."

Rossi frowned. "Everyone I served with is dead or out. Prentiss?"

She grimaced. "Nobody directly, but I could call Greenaway back. Could be she's still on terms with a lieutenant-colonel or something - "

Hotch spoke. "Mrs. LaMontagne. Do you have any useful contacts?"

Emily frowned at him, puzzled.

J.J. seemed just as puzzled. "Sir, Will was a private - "

"But your father was considerably higher."

She went very still. "What do you know about my father?"

"Ten years ago, Brigadier General Henry Jareau and his wife Matilda were killed when a routine training demonstration at Fort Huachuca went very wrong. Though they were the only fatalities, three others in the crowd were seriously wounded, and nine suffered minor injuries, including the general's fifteen-year-old daughter."

"Not so minor," J.J. said quietly. She pushed the hair at her temple back. Penelope sucked in her breath. The pale scar ran for fully three inches along J.J.'s hairline.

Emily realized in that moment she'd never once seen the other woman with all of her hair pulled back. The right side of it was always down, even a little.

J.J. dropped her hand. "How long have you known?" Her voice was still cold and flat.

"About five minutes. The staff sergeant I spoke to had been in the service since 1930."

"How did you even know to ask?"

"When we were talking earlier today, you said Army families and not Army wives. You mentioned fathers first and husbands second. The way you spoke about losing someone suddenly and shockingly told me that you had experienced it at some point in your life, outside of the war. And when you requested permission to join the investigation, you stood at attention as crisply as a private one week out of boot camp."

J.J. closed her eyes. "Right."

"Mrs. LaMontagne, I don't mean to prod sore spots," he said, his voice less detached. "But if you know anybody - "

"Who's the commander at Hamilton?" she interrupted.

"It's a Colonel Gideon."

She froze. " _Jason_ Gideon?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

She pressed her fingers to her eyes. "So he made Colonel," she murmured, and straightened up. "What's the number?"

* * *

For the fourth or fifth time, they heard J.J. say, "Hello, yes. My name is Jennifer Jareau LaMontagne, and I need to speak to Colonel Gideon immediately." Her voice was considerably more clipped than it had been the first time she'd said it, and it hadn't been the gentle coo of a dove to begin with. "Yes, I'm well aware of the time. Are you aware of what immediately means?"

Morgan's eyebrows went up.

"The purpose of my call is a matter between myself and the colonel." Pause. "You can what? Let me tell you something, Private. If the colonel learns tomorrow morning that J.J. called with urgent business and you took a _message_ , you'll be on KP so long that you'll be dreaming about potatoes. You won't know what to do with yourself in a room that's lacking a vat of spuds. The next time you go on a date, you will try to peel her, do I make myself clear _that's yes Ma'am to you, soldier._ " A pause. "Thank you."

Emily bit her lip and stared at the ceiling to keep from cheering.

J.J. came back in the room, carrying the phone with her. The cord trailed back into the hallway. "Colonel Gideon, it's J.J. Yes, sir, really, sir. I'm in New York. Agreed, it has been a long time. What? No, sir, this isn't a social call. I'm currently assisting the NYPD in an investigation. The case is four of our brave boys murdered in cold blood, beaten half to death and then shot the rest of the way. No, sir, it's not an exaggeration at all. There's a fifth in a hospital somewhere, he'll never be the same again. All the signs point to something about their Army service." She read off their units. "I'm sending someone out to Brooklyn tomorrow. Her name is Mrs. Penelope Garcia. Her husband was Navy but I'm vouching for her anyway."

"Hey!" Penelope said indignantly.

"She needs access to any files pertaining to those units. Personnel and movements, at the very least." She listened. "Sir, I'm aware of that. Yes. I know. But this information might lead us right to a killer, one who's due to kill someone else, very soon. Maybe even tomorrow."

She listened, then half-turned away from them, lowering her voice. Emily was still close enough to hear, though. "Sir, you've known me since I was born. You know I wouldn't ask if it weren't important." She went silent again, but it was the silence of waiting, not listening. Emily tried very hard to look as if she hadn't heard a thing.

A minute later, she straightened. "Yes, sir? Let me check." She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. "Penelope, will six hours be enough?"

"Mmm, I don't know. Can I take a helper?" Penelope looked at Reid. "He reads insanely fast, you have no idea."

"She's requesting to bring assistance, sir. No, not me, I have to go to a funeral for one of the victims."

Reid leaned forward. "If it's a matter of clearance, I've got my own. It's Army Corps of Engineers and it's a few years old, but maybe they'll take it."

"He says he's got clearance, sir." J.J. handed Reid the phone.

"Hello, this is - what? Oh." He rattled off a string of numbers and letters. "Me? Dr. Spencer Reid. Currently at Columbia. Well, yes, I suppose I did." He held the phone out. "He'd like to speak to you again."

J.J. took it, reluctantly. "Yes, sir. What? Oh." She faltered. "Um. Good evening, ma'am." She turned and left the room, taking the phone with her.

Rossi let out his breath. "Picks up the phone and calls in a favor from a full bird? _That_ , ladies and gentlemen, is a general's daughter."


	10. Chapter 10

"Same address as last night. Thank you very much. See you soon." Emily hung up, saw Reid, and switched to English. "Hey, I called a cab for me and Penelope. Are you going to walk again?"

"I was planning to, but I can't find Morgan."

"Oh, he left already."

Reid's face fell. "Really? I was going to give him this." He lifted the book he held.

"What is it?"

"Piaget," he said. "Developmental psychology. "

"Sounds right up his alley," Emily lied. But what did she know? Morgan barely spoke to her or J.J. outside of the case. He spoke to Penelope even less, and she could get a brick wall to chat.

Reid said, "We had a good discussion about various psychological theories on the way home last night, so I thought he'd like it." He looked down at the book in his hand again as if regretting that he had to take it home with him again.

Penelope came up the corridor. "Honey, I'm going to stay here tonight. I feel like J.J.'s going to need the company."

"Hotch is here," Reid said. "And Henry."

Penelope looked at him for a moment, then turned back to Emily. "Like I said."

"Want me to stay too?"

"No, you go home and rest up. Did you eat dinner?"

"Too busy. I got a couple of cookies."

"Six and a half," Reid said.

"You should know, I had to fight you for them," Emily said.

Penelope went out with them to say hello to Mr. Jankowski and ask him to come back for her in the morning. The cabbie's rough face softened when he saw her, even though his English was about as good as her Polish. Emily shook her head, still marveling over how Morgan was able to be so rude to Penelope.

Already situated in the back of the cab, Reid stowed the Piaget in his coat and took another book out, reading in the light of the moon. Emily thought about telling him he'd ruin his eyes doing that, then looked at his Coke-bottle glasses and figured they were already done for.

The translation done, Emily climbed into the back of the cab. Penelope leaned in her open door and said, "Dr. Reid? Hey."

"Hmm?"

"Quarter to ten at the fort's front gates. You know how to get there?"

"Mmm." He turned a page.

"That means yes, it really does," Penelope told Emily. "Oh, I got another one for ya." She sailed her hand through the air and whistled a descending note. "Off a cliff."

"What is this, a Looney Tunes short?"

"I like it."

"You would," Emily glanced at the house, glowing with lights. It looked like any other peaceful house on the block, going through the evening routine of supper dishes and bedtime. Not at all like a place where murder was discussed and painful memories were dredged up. "Hey, tell J.J. . . . I don't know what, but think of something nice and tell her that."

"Will do." Penelope gave her a hug, muttered in her ear, "Eat something," and let her go. "Have fun, kids. Don't do anything I would do!" She waved as they set off down the street.

Unexpectedly, Reid said, "Who's falling off a cliff?"

Emily jumped. "I - what?"

"Mrs. Garcia said something about off a cliff."

"Oh, that. It's, um, it's this stupid joke we have. Ways we'd kill off, uh, people we don't like." She managed a laugh. "It's dumb and mean and kind of morbid, but we enjoy it."

"Revenge fantasies are quite healthy, actually, as long as they're not persistently directed at one person and you're not suffering from another form of derangement."

"Not so far as I know," she said, and watched his mouth curl up at the edges again. She liked making him smile, she discovered. It didn't seem as if he had much practice.

"I'd worry if you actually pushed somebody off a cliff," he told her.

"I would too," Emily said. "Because that was her idea."

"Me, I'd go with hit by a bus," Reid said. "Simple yet effective."

"That's what I said." She checked her watch and groaned. It had stopped. "Hey, you got the time?"

He pushed his sleeve up and frowned at his watch. "Um . . . about nine."

But Emily caught his arm, frowning at the fading bruises on his wrists and forearms. They'd turned onto a bigger street, and the street lamps lit up the interior of the cab. "Jesus, Dr. Reid, what happened to you?"

He yanked his wrist out of her grasp and dragged the sleeve back down. "I'm not very coordinated," he said. "I bump into things."

"Like what, entire staircases?"

"There's precedent, yes." He went back to his book.

"Your date is very strange, Miss Prentiss," Mr. Jankowski observed. "You would not catch me ignoring a pretty girl for a book."

Since they were speaking in Polish, she said, "What, him? He's not a date."

"What is he?"

Emily looked at Reid. "A . . . friend, I guess."

"Huh," Mr. Jankowski said.

She sat back and watched the city go by. They were about four blocks from her place when she remembered something. "Say, professor."

"Hmm?" He looked up.

"Did I see you at Sacred Heart Hospital today? Around quarter to six?"

But something outside the window had distracted him. "Excuse me, um, turn left here please?" He said to her, "Mrs. Garcia's right, you should eat something. Cookies are good for quick calories, but an optimal diet includes a balance of protein, carbohydrates - "

"News flash, I'm a nurse. I know that."

Unoffended, he told her, "There's an all-night diner down this street with probably the best coffee in New York City. I'm getting out there. You can come too."

She narrowed her eyes at him, briefly suspicious. She'd fallen for the whole "let's just grab a bite to eat" trick before with men. Then she saw the diner they pulled up in front of. It was aluminum and dingy, with all the class of an IV pole. It didn't look like anybody's idea of a romantic evening.

What it did look like was a place with a tuna melt to die for.

"All right, let's go." 

* * *

Penelope sat at the bottom of the stairs. Hotch was still in the dining room, reading everything over one last time. The man worked too hard, she thought. Of course, with this case, they had reason to.

A mental image of the crime scene photos flashed in front of her eyes, and she shuddered before she could stop herself. _Hunting them down_ . . . there had been a moment there where she'd felt as if she were watching everyone else open a door into gaping blackness and step inside, willingly.

She knew Emily had seen bad things in the war. She didn't know how the other woman handled it.

J.J. came down the stairs from putting Henry to bed. "Penelope? You're still here? Where's Emily?"

"Oh, I sent her home. But I thought you could use the company tonight."

"You have to be in Brooklyn in the morning."

Penelope waved her hand. "Not until ten."

J.J. frowned and started to say something, but Hotch came out of the dining room just then. "Mrs. Garcia?" he said. "I thought I heard the cab leave."

"It did, I stayed," Penelope said simply.

He looked a little confused, but chose to drop the subject in favor of turning to J.J. "Mrs. LaMontagne, I'd like to thank you for your help tonight. I know it wasn't easy for you, but truly, getting into those records - "

"I was glad to do it, sir," J.J. said. "Goodnight." She took the last step down the stairs, around Penelope, and went down the hall into the kitchen.

Hotch looked after her, and if he'd been anyone else, Penelope would have said he looked uncertain. Definitely if he'd been anyone else, she would have hugged him. "Well," he said. "Goodnight Mrs. Garcia."

"G'nite," she called after him.

She sat for a moment more, strategizing, then got up and followed J.J. to the kitchen.

The other woman was at the sink, just setting the first coffee cup in the drainboard. "Penelope, honestly, I'm fine. You should go home."

"You're probably in better shape than that private you reamed out," Penelope observed lightly, picking up a towel and joining her.

J.J. went pink. "You heard that?"

"Heard it? I thought Emily and the boys were going to jump up and salute you when you came back in, and I mighta joined 'em. Where'd you learn that?"

She looked down into the wash water, smiling a little. "Us kids used to hang around the training field and listen to the drill sergeants with the new recruits. It was better than vaudeville. My vocabulary is . . . extensive."

"The drill sergeant, was that Colonel Gideon?"

"No," J.J. said, as if Penelope should have known that. "He was my father's best friend."

"How long had it been since you talked to him?"

"Ten years," she said.

"So not since - "

"Not since my father died, no." She said it with an air of finality that said very clearly she didn't want to talk about it anymore.

Penelope let the silence fall between them, the only sounds the clink of china and the muted splishes of the wash water. "Where do you keep these?" she asked when they were almost finished, indicating the dried cups.

J.J. looked over her shoulder. "That cupboard. There."

Penelope opened the door. "It was raining the morning I got the telegram," she said idly, setting the cups in neat rows on the shelf. "Which stinks, doesn't it? It's so cheesy, right out of the movies. Our fair heroine answers the door, clutching her negligee to her bosom. There he is, on the doorstep, the telegram boy, with rain dripping off his cap, and all he says is, 'Sorry, ma'am.'"

The faint splashing behind her had ceased.

"If it had really been a movie, I'd've fainted or something," she said, closing the door but not turning around. "I didn't. I tipped the boy and sent him on his way. Then I read it. He was on the _Hamman_ at Midway. They were screening the _Yorktown_ and a Jap torpedo nailed 'em. Ship sank in about four minutes. The telegram said, 'missing and presumed deceased.'"

"Oh, God," J.J. said, immediately understanding the horror of that word, _presumed_.

"I used to wake up every morning, look at the ceiling, and think, _Today's the day I'll get the second telegram. It'll say they found him, living off bananas on a South Pacific Island."_ She sighed. "Then one morning, I thought, _No it's not. Tomorrow's not gonna be the day either. My Manny is never coming back to me."_

She put a hand to her face and was surprised to find her cheeks soaking wet, and not with dishwater. Five years and the Manny-shaped hole was still there inside her. The edges were all healed over, and they didn't cut her when she moved like they used to. But she knew that the world no longer held one Manuel Jesus Garcia, able-bodied seaman, who loved the movies, dirty jokes, vanilla cookies, and her, and she could never, ever not know it.

J.J.'s arms came around her, and Penelope leaned against her. "It's rough, is all I mean," she said in a wobbly voice. "I know. Oh, god, do I know. After running away from something for so long, to turn around and look it in the eye. To just let it come get you."

They stood, wrapped up together in the quiet kitchen. J.J's back shuddered.

"When I heard about about Will, he's who I wanted to call first," she said, muffled. "It's not even as if he would have been much help. You don't know him, he's very . . . gruff. The kind of man my mom used to call Government Issue. He probably would have cleared his throat a lot and patted my shoulder, and then yelled for Aunt Susan when I started to cry. But he would have come. And it would have been almost like having my father back again."

"I told myself, he was probably overseas, and I didn't know where Aunt Susan went, and all these other things to cover up the fact that I was afraid. When my parents died, they offered to adopt me. I chose to go to my mother's sister in Pennsylvania, in a town so small they had to share the horse." She smiled a little. "I didn't answer letters or telegrams . . . once Aunt Susan even called, long-distance, for my sixteenth birthday and I refused to come to the phone. I just - " She sighed. "After the way I grew up, and the way my parents died, I just wanted get as far away from the Army as possible."

"And after all that you wound up married to a soldier anyway."

J.J. met her eyes. "There's no escape, is there?"

"From this war? I don't think there is."

"Did you ever hear anything more than presumed?"

"No," Penelope said after a moment. "And I won't."

"It's why you're doing this, isn't it? Because you didn't and you won't."

"And you are because you did. Emily gave you answers about Will. They're important."

J.J. squeezed her hand and let it go. She reached up into a cupboard so high she had to go up on her toes and brought out a bottle of whiskey. "Something tells me we're going to need this if we keep talking."

Penelope got out two of the freshly washed cups. "Well, then, fill 'er up."

* * *

It was a new experience for Penelope Garcia, being escorted by three handsome young men. Admittedly, two of them had guns, but hey, that was new too. She shot Reid a sideways glance. He gave her a little bounce of the eyebrows - _yep, pretty crazy_ \- but seemed otherwise unaffected.

He'd turned up, as ordered, promptly at nine-forty-five. She'd met him, only slightly hungover from the night before. She and J.J. had talked for a long time. She'd needed it.

J.J. too.

The soldier on duty at the front gate glowered at them until they gave their names. Her red patent leather shoes, in particular, seemed to draw his ire. Well, a girl had to accessorize, and it was patriotic, wasn't it? When he'd called it in, he very suddenly got a lot less intimidating and a lot more, "Right this way, sir. Right this way, ma'am."

She did have the most _interesting_ friends, Penelope thought happily.

They were shown into a concrete walled room that needed serious decorating help. It held a table and precisely two chairs, and boxes stacked halfway up the wall. "You have until four o'clock," one of their escorts said, and stationed themselves right outside the door. Presumably until four o'clock.

Penelope looked around at the boxes of files - troop movements, personnel, all the minutiae of four units over the years of the war. She lifted her hands and flexed her fingers like the artiste she knew she was. "Oh, baby," she murmured, pulling the lid off the nearest one. "Come to Momma."


	11. Chapter 11

Annabelle McLeod looked drugged.

She shook Hotch's hand when he offered, saying in a mechanical voice, "Thank you so much for coming." She turned to Mrs. LaMontagne, shook her hand, and said, "Thank you so much for coming." She turned away to the next person.

An older woman at Mrs. McLeod's side reached out and took Mrs. LaMontagne's hand. "She's having a very hard time," she explained in a whisper, drawing them away. "It was just so sudden. They were childhood sweethearts, you know. I'm Mrs. Clawson, Annabelle's mother."

"Mrs. LaMontagne. My husband served with Doug."

"Oh, I see. In Europe?" she asked Hotch.

"Wha - No," he said quickly. "We lost Private LaMontagne at Utah Beach. I'm Captain Hotchner. I was Doug's commanding officer."

Her faded blue eyes flickered between them, once, and then she took his hand. "Of course. Captain Hotchner. He always spoke so well of you. Thank you for coming today."

"He was a good soldier, and a good man. It's a terrible loss to us. What happened to him - " He didn't know how much she knew. "He didn't deserve that."

"No, of course not." She squeezed his hand. "There's coffee in the dining room, just through there. Please feel free."

Thus dismissed, he and Mrs. LaMontagne went into the dining room, and separated without discussing it. She headed for a knot of black-clad, sober-faced women. He focused on the men, shaking familiar hands, watching faces, examining the memories the faces sparked. He was glad of a purpose, in this room soaked with shock and sadness. He wasn't used to funerals.

Of course, men had died overseas - it was, after all, a war - but where possible, their bodies were sent back home, and all that was left was a buddy who would talk about them when the hour got late enough or they got drunk enough. No long services with the flag-draped casket at the front of the church, no family in black, no speeches, no flowers, and definitely no stuffed mushrooms.

Who in their right mind would stuff a mushroom, anyway?

He put his plate down, discreetly.

"Captain!"

He turned. "Lieutenant Barnes."

"Good to see you, sir," Barnes said, squeezing his hand with the forced camaraderie he'd always adopted, as if Hotch were his best friend instead of his commanding officer. "Even under these conditions. Hell of a thing, isn't it?"

"Yes," Hotch said, extricating his hand discreetly. "It was quite a shock."

Barnes shook his head mournfully. "You never know, right?"

"No." Hotch studied him covertly, and dismissed him from the list of suspects. He'd never been a replacement, he was a commissioned officer, and he'd barely known there _were_ protocols, much less followed them with the rigidity of their killer. No, Barnes wasn't a killer. He was just annoying.

"So, who's the girl?"

"I'm sorry?"

"The knockout you came to the church with." Barnes winked. "Not too bad, sir. Not too bad. But let me give you some advice, don't take 'em to a church. Gives them ideas."

"Mrs. LaMontagne," Hotch said coldly, "is Private William LaMontagne's widow, and a personal friend of Mrs. McLeod. She's an excellent woman and I consider her a friend."

"Oh," Barnes said, momentarily taken aback. He coughed and looked around, then brightened. "Hey, Joyner! Look who I found."

"Captain!"

Hotch shook Joyner's hand with a warmth that was more genuine.

Barnes kept calling men over, and soon enough there was a huddle of commissioned officers, talking about old times and catching up on news. "What're you doing now, sir?" someone asked.

"I went back to the NYPD," he said. "I'm a detective."

Joyner looked at him sharply. "Say, sir, are you investigating what happened to Doug?"

He looked around at the curious, hopeful faces, again looking at him to fix things, to find out what happened, to tell them what to do. "I'm looking into it," he said.

"Any leads?"

He hesitated. "Possibly." He'd talked to Reid for half an hour last night, trying to pin down this description into something that didn't sound like it had come from a crystal ball. "In fact, your input would be valuable."

Barnes' chest swelled. "Mine?"

"All of yours. I'm looking for a man who would have been in our unit. Young, enlisted, probably never higher than corporal and more likely private first-class or even second. He would have stood out because he was a stickler for protocol. Everything had to be exactly by the book, and he would have been scornful, openly or privately, of anyone whose behavior didn't measure up. He may have reported minor infractions to you and expressed resentment when the subject of the reports wasn't punished."

Puzzlement flickered on the faces surrounding him. "Sir? This is someone you remember?"

"No," Hotch said. "There are certain elements to the murders which lead us to believe that this is the kind of man who may have committed them. We also believe he may have only been in our unit a short time, as a replacement soldier who got transferred in, then invalided back out again."

"There were so many . . ." Joyner trailed off.

"Think about it. I don't expect you to recall any one man right away, but if you remember someone who fits that description, I'd like you to contact me."

* * *

J.J. was getting frustrated fast.

No matter what she did, she couldn't seem to get close enough to Annabelle to talk to her, and when she did, the other woman looked right through her. It was as if she weren't even in her body.

The doctor had given her something, nosy Lydia Barnes confided in a whisper. "Kindest thing. Maybe she won't remember any of this."

J.J. thought it might not be so kind as all that, when the drug wore off and Annabelle remembered again that her husband was dead.

Lydia had always held herself aloof from J.J., officer's wife to enlisted man's widow. But today she was surprisingly chatty, sharing tidbits about all the mourners, though nothing useful. The reason for it came clear when she said, "So. You and Captain Hotchner. How long has that been going on?"

J.J. almost spilled her coffee. "What?"

"You came together."

"We didn't come together," J.J. said, too quickly. "We just, um, came together."

The other woman raised a brow, one side of her mouth curled up in a knowing smile.

"He rents from me," she said, voice as cool and uncaring as she could make it. "I take in boarders. We were both coming, so it didn't really sense to get two cabs."

"Mmm," Lydia said, not entirely convinced.

J.J. sipped her coffee, cursing herself. How could she have forgotten about the gossip mill?

Easy. She'd been so focused on the case, so happy to have something to _do_ at this funeral, that she hadn't even thought how it would look, them coming as an apparent couple. She hoped nobody said anything like it to Hotch. It would be too embarrassing.

Lydia looked toward the door, and her brows rose. "Well, look who turned up. They must have closed the laundry for the day."

J.J. followed her gaze. "Excuse me, I've got to go powder my nose." She made her escape while Lydia was still blinking.

The man just turning away from Annabelle caught sight of her and held out a hand. "Mrs. LaMontagne."

She took it. "Sergeant Kim. It's very good to see you." It was, too. Sergeant Kim had made a point of visiting her after he got home, and for the first time, J.J. realized how uncomfortable a Chinese man must have been, coming into her neighborhood. It made the gesture all the more kind, especially since she was pretty sure he'd been the one to tell Hotch that her last boarder had left and she needed income.

"And you, though the circumstances could be better."

"I wish they were. Listen, Hotch is here, and - "

A commotion at the door made her break off. A stocky, red-headed man stood close to Annabelle as they argued in whispers.

"How dare you come here?" she demanded.

"You honestly think I could stay away?"

"I wish you had!"

"Annie - "

"Don't call me that!" For the first time, her voice cracked. "Only he calls me that."

He made a move as if to put his arm around her shoulders, and she pushed him, hard. He stumbled backward.

J.J. and Kim moved as one, J.J. going to Annabelle. The other woman turned her face into J.J's shoulder, shaking. "Shh," J.J. murmured, rubbing her back. "Shhhh."

Kim caught the stocky man's shoulder. "Tambour, stand down."

"I have a right to be here. I was his best friend." Tambour's voice trembled.

"I know. But she was his wife. Stand down." He pointed at the backyard, just visible through an open door. "Take a minute."

When Tambour didn't move, Kim said sharply, "That's an order."

As J.J. drew Annabelle into an empty room, she saw Hotch turn away from a knot of men and follow Tambour out the door.

* * *

When Tambour saw Hotch come out the back door into the yard, he started to stand at attention, but Hotch waved him down. "No need, soldier," he said. "You're not on duty." He took out a pack of cigarettes. "Smoke?"

The other man's stiff shoulders slumped. "God, yes."

They sat on the back stoop to smoke. Tambour's hands were shaking so much he went through three matches trying to light his cigarette. He sucked in the first drag of smoke like oxygen and let it out in a long stream.

He and McLeod had never been an obvious pair, on the face of it. The quiet, serious young soldier, who preferred writing letters home to his wife and child to a rousing night on the town, and the merry, irreverent artillery specialist, who never missed a chance for a joke or a flirt. And yet they'd been like brothers, almost since the moment they met.

Now Tambour looked as if his entire world had caved in.

Hotch said, "It's not easy."

"Yeah." Tambour rubbed a hand over his short hair. "I can't take it in," he muttered. "It's peacetime, you know? We made it. We were all supposed to go home and outlive our teeth and tell stories to all the neighborhood kids about what the war was like. Nobody said it'd only be eighteen months until - " He swallowed hard and looked away.

Hotch nodded. "McLeod didn't deserve to die like that."

"A dog doesn't deserve to die like that." Tambour took another long drag and let it out through his nostrils in two matching plumes. "And the cops will probably never catch the bastard, either."

"We're following several leads."

Tambour's head came up, and his cheeks, already ruddy, flushed further. "Sorry, sir, Doug told me you were a cop these days but I forgot. How many leads can you have on a random mugging?"

"I don't believe it was random."

His hand clenched around the cigarette. "What do you mean?"

"Do you know if Doug was acquainted with Walter Wilton, Randall Garner, or Barney Finks?"

He mouthed the names and shook his head. "No, sir. He never mentioned any of them, not once."

This was boggy ground here. Hotch eased out onto it. "Are you absolutely sure he told you everything?"

The other man's brows pulled together. "What's that supposed to mean? Sir."

"Those names belong to the other men who died in the same way that Doug did. They had very little in common, except for being in the Army, and for having . . . secrets."

"Secrets?"

"The kind of secrets that could get a man kicked out."

Tambour was on his feet now, cigarette smoldering forgotten on the bench. "Is this why you came out here, sir? To imply nasty things about Doug when the dirt's barely settled on his grave?"

Hotch got to his feet. "I'm not implying anything."

"We're at his funeral, goddammit. What kind of thing is that to be asking about, at his funeral?"

"I'm trying to figure out who did this to him, and why." Hotch narrowed his eyes. "What do you know, soldier?"

Tambour's fists clenched, and Hotch tensed, waiting to be swung at. But the other man wrestled his control back, visibly. "I know," he said in a low, shaking voice, "that Doug McLeod was one of the finest men I'll ever know, and I'll miss him for the rest of my life. That's what I know." He looked at the ground. "Thanks for the smoke, sir. I think I should go."

* * *

Annabelle stopped shaking after a few moments in the upstairs bathroom, but she still looked lost and helpless, as if the drug were wearing off. J.J. opened her handbag. "You smoke?"

"Not where anybody can see," Annabelle said.

"I can't see a thing, can you?"

She laughed, breathlessly, and looked shocked at the sound.

They smoked quietly for several moments. Annabelle tapped the ash off her cigarette and stared at the glowing end. "How am I going to do this, J.J?" she whispered. "I'm not strong like you."

J.J. choked out a laugh. "I'm not strong. I'm a mess at the best of times."

Annabelle shook her head. "No, you're not. You've got your little boy, and you're keeping a roof over your heads and you're - you're managing. I don't know how I'm even going to do that. You are strong."

"Mostly, I'm pretending." J.J. watched the smoke drift away from her cigarette, sucked toward the open window, and stubbed it out on the rim of the bathtub. "I feel like I've been frozen for three years - " _more_ " - and I'm just now thawing out."

"Maybe it's good to be frozen," Annabelle said.

"I don't think so," J.J. said. "I know this woman - actually, we just met a few days ago, but I feel like I've known her forever. Anyway, when we first met, I thought she was . . . a little silly, you know? Kinda fluffy?"

"Dizzy," Annabelle contributed.

"Yeah. Then I got to know her, and I realized that - " J.J. thought of some of the things they'd talked about, late into the night. "She's lost so much," she said. "But the world is still beautiful to her. It really is. How she can lose her family, and her husband, and really almost everything, and still be able to . . . love the way she does, so wide open. I don't know. But it's so good to know it's possible."

Annabelle was silent for several moments, taking that in. "I think the worst of it is not knowing why," she said at length. "At least if he'd died in battle, I could've said, he was serving his country and it was a war and . . ." She trailed off. "But this. I just don't understand why anyone would murder him." She looked up. "Has Captain Hotchner talked to you about it?"

"Yes," J.J. said. "In fact - Annabelle, I need to be honest here. I do care how you're doing. But I'm helping him with the investigation. And I need to ask some questions about Doug."

Annabelle looked away. "I already told the other detective everything I know."

"Are you sure?" J.J. asked. "We think it's something about his service. Something that happened."

Annabelle lit another cigarette. "He was a good soldier."

"Yes, he was. We all know that. But somebody thinks differently, and I know they're wrong, and you know they're wrong, but we have to understand why he thinks that."

The widow was silent, smoking furiously. J.J. watched the ash shoot up the shaft of the cigarette before it collapsed and drifted to the floor.

"Annabelle, I know it's hard to give up a secret."

"He's dead. How can it matter now?"

"Because it could help us catch the man who did this." J.J. waited, watching Annabelle's eyes. There was something, sliding just under the surface, that wanted to boil up and out like lava. When she judged the moment right, she reached down as if to pick up her handbag.

Annabelle's hand shot out and closed around hers. "You need to know he wasn't like the rest of them."

"The rest of who?" J.J. asked, fighting not to wince as the other woman's grip tightened.

The words tumbled out like a waterfall. "He was a good father, you know. You never hear that. You never hear that they can be good fathers. That's why I always thought he wasn't as sick as the ones you hear about. He loved Corrina and Michael with all his heart, I never doubted that, ever. Maybe he should have gone away, to a hospital or something, but I wouldn't've let him even if he wanted to. I would've fixed him, if I'd just had long enough. I know I would have fixed him."

"Fixed him?" 

* * *

The door opened. "Someone said you came out here," a familiar voice said.

Hotch stood. "Kim. Damn good to see you."

First Sergeant Owen Kim had been his second-in-command for the last third of the war, in charge of all the NCOs and enlisted men. Although he'd come in for more than his share of harassment due to his background, he'd been a steady leader that the subordinate sergeants trusted absolutely.

They sat down together, Hotch glad that this discussion could take place out here, not in that room with eager ears listening in. It was one thing to discuss the profile with his officers, but if anyone would have real information, it would be Owen Kim.

"Did Tambour leave, sir?" Kim asked after they'd greeted each other.

"He couldn't stay."

Kim nodded, realizing that Hotch didn't mean Tambour had suddenly remembered an appointment. "He's taking it hard."

"I think everybody is."

They talked about inconsequentials for a few minutes - Kim's recent marriage, now that the immigration laws on Chinese had relaxed enough to let women into the country, the brewing trouble in Korea, the proposed spinning-off of the Air Corps into an entirely new branch of the military.

"Fine by me," Kim said. "Get those flyboys out of our hair."

"They've been their own little branch for years," Hotch agreed. "Time to make it official."

"But sir, I know you've got more on your mind than Army gossip or my personal life."

"You already heard the profile, didn't you?"

Kim shook his head. "Barnes was so happy to pass it on he didn't even make a crack about laundries. I just want to make sure I heard all of it. You know how he is."

Hotch gave him the information again, watching him carefully.

"Doesn't sound like a killer," Kim said.

"If there's one thing I've learned as a cop, anyone can be a killer. It just takes the right motivation."

"Hell of a job you've got there, sir."

"No argument here. But does that sound familiar?"

"So many replacements," he said. "Such a goddamn long war."

"I don't expect you to remember right away," Hotch said. "But if you do - "

"I do, sir, that's the thing of it. There was someone." He squinted at the sky as Hotch came to attention. "A real pain in everyone's ass, all the way up the line. He was only around for a few weeks. Maybe if it'd been longer he would've gotten up to you. Damn, what was his name? Something out of a book, or history, or - Watson? Holmes! That's it. Wendell Holmes."

It stirred something in Hotch's memory. "A private, wasn't he? With something about his promotion - "

"You put through the paperwork for him to get up to PFC. He'd been Second Class for two years, through four units."

And that would have burned, Hotch thought. Privates generally got promoted to First Class after a year - sooner if recommended by a superior officer. He'd put in his time but him getting bounced around meant the paperwork did too, and paperwork moved a lot slower than men, or war. "He was wounded right after, wasn't he?"

"Yes, and I'll admit I breathed easier when he was gone."

"Pain in the ass."

"Well . . . he was just wrong, sir. Nothing you could put your finger on, just . . . you know the creeping fingers up the back of your neck when there's no reason you can see, but you _know_ something's off?"

Hotch nodded. The soldier's sixth sense, the one that said _ambush_ or _trouble_ and was right too often to ignore.

"That's what I got every time Holmes came around. Just wrong."

Hotch told himself to wait and find out what Mrs. Garcia and Reid brought back from the base. There had been a lot of solders, a lot of replacements, and for all his wrongness, Holmes might have just been another mildly weird soldier.

"Thank you," he said. "If you think of anyone else - "

"Immediately, sir. Sooner."

Hotch started calculating how quickly he could leave the funeral, and how likely it was that Mrs. Garcia and Reid were still at the base, where he could call them and -

Kim spoke again, drawing his attention. "Sir, you said something about . . . infractions? That the killer was a stickler? Why would he target McLeod?"

"We don't know. Yet." Hotch looked at him sharply. "Do you?"

The other man hesitated. "In confidence, sir?"

"It won't go beyond - " He remembered the rest of the team, who would need to know. "It won't go any further than it absolutely must in order for us to catch this bastard."

Kim nodded and said slowly, "There was a filthy rumor that went around among the enlisted men for about half a day, right before the battle where Holmes got wounded. It wasn't anything but speculation, just nasty shit, sir, and the battle knocked it out of everyone's head. I never reported it to you because it didn't deserve that much importance."

"What was the substance of the rumor?"

Kim swallowed and looked away. "I don't know exactly how to put this, sir."


	12. Chapter 12

Mrs. Garcia turned away from Mrs. LaMontagne's front door as Reid came up the walk from paying the cabbie. "I don't think they're home yet," she said. "Tell you what, I'm going to pop next door and ask to use their phone. J.J. gave me the number of the McLeod house. They'll want to know what we found out."

"All right," Reid said. He dropped down onto the steps and pulled out his book.

"Hi," said a small voice, several minutes later.

Reid looked up to see the owner of the voice, an equally small boy, surveying him like an entomologist with a particularly fine beetle. "Hello."

"Auntie Penny says Mama and Mr. Hotchner already left the funeral, so they'll be back soon."

"Auntie Penny? Do you mean Mrs. Garcia?"

"She said I could call her that. This morning."

"Where is she?"

"She 'n' Mrs. Gambini are talking." Henry pointed, and Reid looked in the indicated direction to see Mrs. Garcia on the front stoop next door, deep in conversation with an older woman. The boy wrinkled his nose. "She said I could come over here and keep you company."

"I'm sure that was very kind of her," Reid said doubtfully.

"You're Mama's and Mr. Hotchner's friend."

"Oh, well, in point of fact, I'm assisting them with - Uh, yes. I guess so. Yes, I'm their friend." That made the third time in a week he'd been called somebody's friend, which was three times more than last month. He wondered fleetingly if he should have told Emily - Miss Prentiss - that he could understand Polish. "You're Mrs. LaMontagne's son."

"Henry William LaMontagne," he said. "At your service."

"Dr. Spencer Reid. Likewise."

They shook hands. Apparently feeling that they were now old pals, Henry plopped himself down next to Reid. "What're you reading?"

He glanced down at the book lying open on his knees. "It's called the _Aeneid_. My mother first read this to me when I was your age, in fact. She was quite a noted classicist."

"Does she still read it to you?"

He took off his glasses and started polishing them. "No."

Henry leaned over and peered down at the page. "I don't know those words," he said, disappointed.

"Well, you're quite young to be reading," he said, putting his glasses back on.

"I know lots of words, though. I know cat and ball and Mama and Henry. I can write them."

"You're quite the scholar. But these words are actually in another language. It's Latin."

"You speak Latin?"

"Nobody speaks Latin, Henry. It's a dead language."

Henry's head jerked up. "Languages die?"

Reid looked down at the page, trailing one finger up the edge and down again. "Everything dies."

Yes, he thought, that was true. Some day, uncountable billions of years in the future, the universe would drift slowly to a halt and everything that had ever been, including this speck of dust called the Earth and all the microspecks on it, would hang in the stillness of infinity. Next to that, what was one human life?

"My dad's dead," Henry said. "The war killed him."

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry," he offered, feeling obligated.

"Everyone always says that," Henry said. "That they're sorry." He sighed. "Will you tell me a story from your book?"

Reid looked down at it. "Um, well, this one doesn't make for especially good stories. But I can tell you another one. From another book."

"Does it have monsters?"

He closed the _Aeneid_ and put it away in his coat pocket. "Yes."

"Okay, then." Henry flopped onto his back on the sun-warmed steps, clearly ready to hear a good story. "Tell me."

Reid thought for a moment. "Sing to me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero - What?"

"Can't you tell it normal?"

"That's the translation from the Greek."

"Normal stories start with once upon a time."

"But that's not the way this story starts."

"This story starts strange. It should go like this instead. Once upon a time, in a far away land, there was a man who . . ." He trailed off, looking at Reid expectantly.

Clearly this was his cue. "Once upon a time," he said softly, "in a far away land, there was a very, very clever man named Odysseus. He had been at war for ten years, and now that the war was over, all he wanted to do was go home."

* * *

As they turned a corner, Mrs. LaMontagne broke the silence that had lain heavy over them since leaving the McLeod house. "Do you think they found anything in the archives?"

"We'll find out," Hotch said.

_Holmes. Wendell Holmes._

He concentrated on his spotty memory, sketching out the mental picture of a young, round-faced man. That was it. That was all. Six weeks wasn't very long, but shouldn't he know? Shouldn't he remember the kind of person who would do what had been done to Doug McLeod?

Doug, with his secret life.

Mrs. LaMontagne said, "What you said to Annabelle's mother - "

"What about it?" His voice sounded sharper than he meant it, and she hesitated before continuing.

"It's almost exactly the same thing you said in your letter to me after Will died."

If anyone would remember, she would. "It's just as true."

"I know." She caught his arm, stopping them in the middle of the sidewalk. "I'm not faulting you for it, Hotch. I just realized that you still think of him as one of your men. All of them. Even though the war's over. And this man, the one who did this - he has no idea what kind of hell he's brought down on his head by attacking somebody who belongs to Aaron Hotchner."

He cleared his throat. She was smiling at him, with the chain of LaMontagne's tags still glinting around her neck, and for some reason he needed her to stop that. "What did Mrs. McLeod say?"

Her smile faded. She looked down at her handbag, working her fingers along the straps, then looked up, meeting his eyes squarely. "She told me that her husband . . . that Doug was a homosexual."

He was silent for a moment. "Kim said that was just a rumor."

She sighed a little. "Trust me, if Annabelle had been able to tell herself it was just a rumor, she would have."

He nodded. Somehow, he'd known it was more than a rumor when Kim had told him.

They started walking again.

"When I was a kid," she said thoughtfully, "there were a couple of officers on base that everyone said were - you know. But there was a full court-martial for that. Even if Kim did think it was just a rumor, why didn't you hear about this before now?"

Hotch shook his head impatiently. "Court-martials take forever. They're a peacetime luxury. If I'd found out, I would have had to give him a blue ticket immediately." He started to define that, then remembered she of all people would know the army slang for an administrative discharge. "Kim never reported it to me because he knew that after Stalingrad, we couldn't afford to lose a good soldier and NCO."

"Army regulations say that by definition, a homosexual is not a good soldier."

His hands clenched briefly. He knew she was playing devil's advocate. "I'll be the one to determine who's a good soldier and who's not."

"One of your men," she said again, softly. "Always."

He didn't answer.

They turned the last corner before home. Mrs. Garcia, staked out on the neighbor's porch, spotted them first and waved wildly.

Hotch blinked. Had she really worn scarlet lipstick and a hat with an eighteen-inch purple feather to Fort Hamilton?

She bade goodbye to sour Mrs. Gambini and skipped down to meet them. "What a sweetie neighbor you have," she said to Mrs. LaMontagne. "She's going to give me her recipe for icebox cake."

"Well, how do you like that? I've been trying to get that recipe for years."

"Want a copy?"

"God, yes."

Dr. Reid sat on the front step with Henry, apparently telling a story, because the boy's eyes were as wide as saucers. He looked up mid-monster and spotted them. "Mama!"

She caught him and hoisted him up onto her hip. "Ooof! Did you have a good day?"

"Yes," he said, playing with the netting on her hat. "I ate ravioli and cake. And Mr. Gambini played checkers with me. And then Auntie Penny came with Dr. Reid, an' he told me a story about a man who was coming back from the war and he got lost and he couldn't radio for help because this was an olden-days war so he just wandered around for ten years and then he met a lady who turned his men into _pigs_."

While he chattered, Hotch stepped around them and unlocked the front door.

"Sounds like a lulu," she said, setting him down just inside. "Honey, there's lemonade in the icebox. You can go get some."

He lingered, casting wide eyes at Dr. Reid. "But I wanted to hear more story."

"He'll tell you more later," she promised. "But right now we've got to have a very dull grown-up conversation."

"How dull?"

"So dull your brains will melt and run out your ears."

He made a happy, disgusted noise and galloped down the hallway.

"What did you find out?"

The question came from both Mrs. Garcia and Hotch. "You first," Hotch said.

"Okay, well. We read ourselves cross-eyed, but by the end of it, there was only one replacement soldier who served in all those units."

"His name was Wendell Holmes, wasn't it?"

Her eyes went round. "How'd you know?"

"Reid told me what to look out for, and my first sergeant remembered him. He'd still be in the service. Did you speak to Colonel - "

But Mrs. Garcia shook her head. "No, sir, he's not, sir. Discharged."

"Six weeks ago," Reid added. "Dishonorable discharge. A significant stressor. Doubtless that's what triggered the murders."

Hotch frowned. "What were the circumstances?"

"Attacking a superior officer," Reid said, putting his hands in his pockets. "Apparently unprovoked."

Mrs. LaMontagne pursed her lips.

Mrs. Garcia said. "The file was pretty dry stuff, but I got to talking to one of the boys guarding us. Turns out I know his godmother. She's the sweet old thing who runs the stand right off the corner where I get flowers for my desk every couple of days. Is that not the craziest - "

"Mrs. Garcia."

"Right, sir. So apparently this was the kind of thing that could've ended in a nice, discreet transfer to some godforsaken middle of nowhere post, except for two things." Her eyes sparkled with the thrill of information. "First off, said superior officer, one corporal Tobias Henkel Jr, is the son of Sergeant Major Tobias Henkel, Sr, who was not inclined to be merciful after Holmes broke his kid's arm."

"Ah," Mrs. LaMontagne murmured.

"Right. Secondly, and this is another nail in the coffin, sounds like Holmes gave quite a few people the willies, no joke."

"Feelings of discomfort when interacting with a psychopath are common," Reid put in. "Because most people are initially taken in by their facade of charming or ingratiating behavior, they find it difficult to reconcile their positive first impressions with their growing awareness of the psychopath's lack of human empathy."

"He was wrong," Hotch muttered.

"Excuse me?" Reid actually sounded rather offended.

"Not you," Hotch said. "Something my first sergeant said. There was something wrong about him."

"Would you say that your first sergeant has a strong understanding of people?"

"Absolutely."

"Fascinating. I wonder if you wouldn't mind giving me his address so I can interview him about - "

"Later," Hotch said. "Where did Holmes go after he was discharged?"

"He had no next of kin," Mrs. Garcia said. "But his file showed a forwarding address here in the city." She dug in her handbag and produced a neatly folded piece of paper. "Funny thing is, sir, it's north of Houston. Not on the Lower East Side at all."

"It is anomalous," Reid acknowledged. "But it's possible that he works down here."

"Very possible," Hotch said. "And very worth checking out."

* * *

Hotch came back down the stairs in civilian attire, strapping his shoulder holster on before shrugging into the jacket. Mrs. Garcia's eyes widened when she saw the sidearm. "Do you think you'll need that?"

"A precaution," he said, sliding his detective's shield into the inside breast pocket. "Mrs. LaMontagne, did you reach Rossi and Morgan?"

"They'll both meet you there," Mrs. LaMontagne reported. "And I've called a cab. It's on the way."

"Thank you. I'll wait on the porch."

"Hotch - " She frowned, biting her lip. "Be careful."

He nodded and went out the door.

Reid followed him out onto the porch. "Hotch, ah, if it's possible - "

"No," Hotch said.

Reid's face went hot, and he stepped back slightly.

More gently, the other man said. "You were going to ask to come along, right? I'm sorry, but the answer's no."

"I realize that he could well be the killer, but I'm not his preferred target. I could talk to him," Reid said, mustering all the practical and logical reasons why he should come along to meet Wendell Holmes. "I could gauge his mindset - "

"Dr. Reid. Can you absolutely assure me that your presence and your actions will keep this man from devolving into violence, if he is the killer?"

The logic couldn't be ignored. Reid let out his breath. "No. No, I can't promise that."

Hotch nodded. "You've been an enormous help," he said. "We never would reached this point without your expertise. But you are not a law enforcement official - "

"Neither is Morgan - "

"But he has experience which you lack. And I cannot in good conscience allow a civilian to come into such a volatile situation. Understood?"

Reid looked at his face. There would be no budging him. "Yes, sir."

He nodded once, sharply.

Maybe it was poking a lion, but Reid said, "I'd like to interview Holmes afterwards, if possible. It could be most informative."

Hotch thought it over. "I'll call here when it's all over. You can come down to the station. If possible."

Reid let out his breath. "Thank you. I will."

He lingered on the porch, watching the policeman tap a finger against the door jamb. Something was troubling him. Reid was considering various theories as to the root of that when Hotch said abruptly, "Do you have any advice on approaching him?"

"Hmm. Well, primarily, he believes that what he's doing is right. Keep that in mind. He may not even understand that what he's doing is morally wrong. He thinks it's justified. He may believe that you and the Army would support him if his actions ever came to light."

Hotch's face hardened. "So I should congratulate him?"

"No. No! That's not what I'm saying at all. Just realize that . . . delusions are dangerous things to break. Do it carefully."

The other man nodded.

"You do have an advantage in this situation. The Army and its hierarchies are important to him, and he has a good impression of you because you promoted him. Treat him as if you were still his captain and he were still in the Army."

Hotch nodded, clearly thinking it over. "Yes. He would respond to that. Thank you." But the tension in his shoulders remained, and his finger still tapped against the door jamb. Whatever was bothering him was not about how to approach Holmes.

He paced up and down the path a few times, looking up and down the road. No cab presented itself. He came back. Tapped the door jamb again. "Reid."

"Sir?"

"Do you know much about homosexuality?" he asked in a low voice.

Reid considered him. He was probably not asking for himself, given his careful, almost courtly treatment of Mrs. LaMontagne. Therefore, this most certainly was regarding Douglas McLeod, and what they'd found out about him at the funeral. Interesting. "Not on a personal level, no, but I'm certainly aware of the current research."

"Why would a man who was sick like that not get help? There are doctors. Hospitals. If he had a wife, or children, why wouldn't he want to be normal for them?"

"As you say, if such a man did have a wife or children, admitting such a thing by submitting himself for treatment would be potentially publicly humiliating for them. Particularly his wife, I imagine. I can easily see many men preferring to remain in denial about their sexual preferences rather than put their families through that." He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Technically speaking, of course, homosexuality is classified as a pyschopathology by the majority of psychiatrists. However, there are a number of researchers, including one very insistent gentleman at Indiana University, who argue that we could consider homosexuality as not a perversion, but part of a continuum of normal human sexual possibility."

Hotch gave him a long, silent look.

"Maybe he didn't feel wrong." A cab turned the corner, and he spotted the profile of a woman in the backseat. Reid continued, more slowly, "Or maybe he met somebody and for the first time in his life, he felt right."

Hotch followed his gaze, spotted the cab, and jolted upright. By the time it reached the curb, he was there, yanking the door open before Emily could open it herself.

"Well, thanks," she started, digging in her purse.

Hotch said, "Out, Prentiss," in the kind of voice that Reid imagined his subordinates knew well.

She jumped out, he slid in, and the cabbie said from the front seat, "That'll be - "

Hotch cut him off. "I'll pay double her ride and mine if you can get me to this address in twenty minutes. _Drive._ "

Emily watched it roar down the street and turned to Reid. "What's going on?" She was still wearing her nurse's uniform, but she'd put on a regular hat and her hair was slipping its pins. She looked pale and tired and entirely beautiful.

"We may have found him."

"Really?"

"There was one replacement soldier in all four units, and one of Hotch's men remembered him." Reid nodded after the cab. "Hotch is meeting Rossi and Morgan at his apartment."

"Wow," she murmured, looking shaken by the speed of events. "So this could all be over by tonight. If it's him. If you're right about all this."

"I'm right," he said.

She grinned at him. "You know, you've got to work on your confidence, professor."

He blinked at her, puzzled.

"Joke," she said. "How will we know what's going on?"

"Hotch said he would call," Reid told her.

"Great." She took his arm. "Why don't you fill me in on all the details while we're waiting?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think 1947 Hotch is homophobic, any more than I think current-day Hotch is homophobic. What I do think he/they are, is rather conservative, intensely private, and something of a control freak. And right now Hotch is freaking out just a little that someone he thought he knew well had a highly personal secret of this magnitude. Plus, as Reid points out, the prevailing medical attitude at the time was that homosexuality was a mental illness, an attitude that wouldn't shift out of the mainstream until 1981, when it was removed as a definition from the DSM IV. Yes, that would indeed be thirty-four years later.
> 
> Of course there were places and people who accepted and embraced homosexuality, but pre-Stonewall, they were few and far between, and men like McLeod had to accept a lifetime of secrets and lies when they accepted their sexual identity. However, McLeod was far from the only gay man who ever made it through the Army's screening techniques, and probably even one of the ones deeper in the closet. (Sample interview question: "How do you feel about girls?" Uh-huh. That's some crack interrogation technique you got there, boys.) By the way, the "very insistent gentleman" Reid mentions is none other than Alfred Kinsey, whose books Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female would be published in 1948 and 1953, respectively.
> 
> If you've made it through this without falling asleep, you, too, may be a history and research nerd. Seek professional help. Or get your MLS.


	13. Chapter 13

Half an hour later, with a sigh, Emily dropped the unholy tangle that she'd meant to be a sock into her lap. "Look, Penelope, thanks for trying to teach me. But this is like wrestling a porcupine."

"Don't be such a baby, it's just one extra needle. Okay, two."

"Uh-huh, yeah. I'll stick to scarves and leave the - "

The phone rang. Yarn went flying and needles clattered to the floor as the three women, plus Reid, bolted into the front hallway. J.J. got there first. "Hello?" She listened as they crowded around her, trying to listen in. Her shoulders sagged. "I see."

"What?" Penelope whispered. "What?"

"Oh? Right. Of course. See you soon." She hung up. "He wasn't there."

"I'm guessing that means he didn't just step out for a smoke," Emily said.

"He was only there for a week after being discharged, then he moved on. No forwarding address. Back to square one."

Penelope's eyes narrowed. "Not exactly. We've got a name now, and an age, and Reid, you've got that crazy memory. Give me everything you got from his file." She dragged the doctor into the dining room and toward the nearest ream of paper.

J.J. remained in the hall, drumming her fingers against the telephone table. Just as Emily was about to follow Penelope and Reid into the dining room, she spoke. "Emily, you're not in contact with Mr. Tambour, are you?"

It took her a moment to place the name. "What, Specialist Tambour? McLeod's friend? No." Emily frowned at her. "He doesn't fit the suspect profile."

"Yes, but he may fit the victim profile."

"Tambour? Last I checked, being a hound dog wasn't against Army regulations. Far from it."

"I know he has a reputation as a flirt."

"You could say that. If chasing skirts were a track and field event, he'd be the next Jesse Owens."

J.J. shook her head, unsmiling. "All those skirts he chased, did he ever catch one?"

"What? Of course. I mean, he must've . . ." She trailed off, feeling her mouth fall open. Everybody knew Tambour couldn't keep his hands off women. But now she realized that she'd never heard of one single nurse who'd actually slept with him. "You mean he . . .with Doug?"

"I don't know for sure. But the way Annabelle spoke to him today . . . it wasn't the way you speak to a friend of your husband's that you don't particularly like. It was the way you speak to the other woman."

"Even if the other woman isn't a woman? Oh, my brain hurts now." She rubbed her temples. "You're right. If that's true, he could be the next target. We've got to warn him."

"I don't know his number. Maybe Sergeant Kim - " J.J. started flipping through her address book.

"Wait. Last I heard, Tambour took out a GI loan and opened up a restaurant when he got back. A pizzeria, I think."

J.J.'s brow furrowed. "Do you think Holmes would cross Bowery into Little Italy?"

"But it's not in Little Italy, that's the thing. It's on the Lower East Side, just off Water Street. He's selling to guys who got a taste for it overseas."

J.J. dialed the operator. "Yes, I need a number for a . . . pizzeria restaurant?" She raised her brows at Emily, who nodded confirmation. "Off Water Street." She scribbled the number down. "Mmmhm. Yes. Thank you." She disconnected without hanging up and dialed the new number. "May I speak to Mr. Tambour, please? He isn't? Does he have a home telephone number? No, this is a personal matter." She made a face at Emily as she noted down the number. "Thank you very much. What? No, not like that. Really. No!"

Emily grabbed the phone, cooed, "Thanks so much, you're a peach," and hung up.

J.J. was still a little red. "I could _hear_ him smirking. God knows what he thought."

"He thought you were chasing after Tambour," Emily said absently, dialing and talking over the ringing on the line. "Which is the handiest explanation. Really, J.J, you've been a good girl too long. It doesn't do one lick of harm to forget about your reputation every once - "

A gravel-voiced someone picked up. "Yes?"

"Specialist Tambour," Emily said, angling the handset so J.J. could hear too. "It's Lieutenant Prentiss of the 45th. Remember me?"

A pause. "Prentiss," he said. His consonants were mushy with drink. "Goddamn. How are you?"

"I've been better. Listen, I heard about McLeod."

"Doug. He's dead." Tambour's voice cracked.

"Yeah, I know. I'm so sorry. I know you were buddies."

"He's dead," the man said again. "What'm I going to do, Prentiss?"

Emily met J.J's eyes, both of them knowing her guess was right. This wasn't just pain over the loss of a friend. This was a heart smashed to pieces. "Keep going," she said. "It's all you can do."

"Someone killed him," Tambour mumbled. "Didja know that?"

"I did. It's a long story, but I'm helping the investigation."

"Are you helping Hotch?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"He said . . . he said Doug brought it on himself."

J.J.'s mouth fell open. "Of course he didn't bring it on himself. Nobody thinks that, least of all Hotch."

"Who's that?"

"It's Mrs. LaMontagne, Will's widow. Mr. Tambour, please listen to me. The only person to blame for this is the killer."

"That's why we're calling," Emily said. "You need to be careful. You could be a target too."

"Who told you that?"

"We're calling everybody in the unit," J.J. lied easily. "Please, Mr. Tambour, this is very important. If a man named Wendell Holmes contacts you, or comes to the restaurant, you need to call here and let us know right away."

There was silence on the line for several seconds. "Did he do this?"

"I'm not prepared to say how Mr. Holmes is involved in the case." The bureaucratic bullshit rolled off the other woman's tongue like honey. "Just that it's urgent you let us know if he contacts you. Do you have a pen?"

"Um - "

"Get a pen. Do you have one now?"

"Yes."

J.J. recited her telephone number. "Contact us immediately if you hear from him," she said again. "It's very important."

"You think he'll remember in the morning?" Emily asked after she hung up. "Or will the hangover drown it out?"

J.J. tore the paper with the restaurant number and Tambour's home number off the pad of paper, wedging it firmly under the base of the phone. "I'll call him and make sure he does."

* * *

The cab dropped them off at Mrs. LaMontagne's house again. Rossi went inside to fill the ladies and Reid in on events, but Hotch stayed on the stoop for a moment to finish the cigarette he'd started smoking in the cab, and Morgan stayed with him, trying to tamp down his frustration before he had to go inside and get back on the case. He'd really thought that he would get to haul in the bastard who'd killed Barney and his life could go back to normal.

"It happens, Morgan," Hotch said. "We followed up on a lead and it fell through. But we know a little more than we did."

"I know," Morgan said. "And it's happened to me too. But I want this to be over, y'know? I want to catch this bastard. I want to see him fry."

"Don't think I don't sympathize," Hotch said, his voice cool and level. "But we're not the ones who decide that. Our job is to catch him, and in the process collect the clearest and most damning evidence possible so he doesn't get away with this."

"You think the courts will take what we've got?"

"They have before. Expert witnesses. I'm sure Dr. Reid would be more than happy to testify when it goes to trial."

Morgan found himself grinning. "The trick would be getting him to shut up."

It might have been the light, but for a moment the other man seemed to smile slightly.

Morgan let out his breath and got to his feet, preparing to dive back into the case. Hotch rose too, although there was still a half-inch of cigarette in his hand. "Morgan, wait."

He stopped.

"You left early last night, so I didn't get a chance to say this. I know it was hard on you, telling us. Finks was your friend. And you kept his secret as long as you could."

"I know I had to tell you," Morgan said wearily. "It's what pulled all this together for us, even if we don't know why McLeod died - " He paused at the uncomfortable expression that flickered over Hotch's face. "What?"

"You'll hear soon enough," Hotch said. "Some things came to light at the funeral today, and long story short, we're pretty sure that he was a, um, not inclined toward women."

"What? You mean a - "

"Yes."

"Wasn't he - "

"Yes."

"Did you - "

"No."

"Right," Morgan mumbled, looking away. Jesus. It happened, of course it happened, but for God's sake, you didn't talk about it.

"My point is, I understand you betrayed a confidence last night. It was necessary, but I know it was hard to do, from the way you left so quickly. And I want to thank you."

Morgan sighed. "It wasn't that. It wasn't all that," he corrected himself.

"What do you mean?"

He found a coin in his pocket and starting flipping it over and over. Heads, tails, tails, tails, heads. The porch light flashed off the flat surface. "I left early because I knew Reid would probably want to walk with me again, and I didn't really want to talk to him."

Hotch frowned.

"He's a good kid," Morgan said quickly, "smarter than the rest of us combined probably, and I believe he's got a good heart, but . . ." He caught the coin and held it. "I don't think he understands that we're talking about people. If you ask me, he thinks it's some kind of experiment, like lifting a rock to see what's underneath."

"They are people. All of them. Whatever they did, whatever they were, they were men."

"So is the man who killed them." His stomach twisted, and he started flipping the coin again. "Last night? When we were talking about him? For a moment there, I was in that man's head. And it wasn't a good place to be, but god, did I get a rush outta bein' there. He murdered my friend, and I was able to see through his eyes for a moment. To _understand._ " He missed a catch, and the coin bounced to the stoop with a silvery clatter. "What does that say about me?"

Hotch knelt and picked it up, handing it back. "We all got into his head, Morgan. We're all in it now, trying to predict where he is and what he's going to do next. And it's damned unsettling, I'll give you that. But we can get out again. Understanding him doesn't mean we're like him."

"You're sure about that?"

"Yes."

The cigarette had burned all the way down. Hotch stubbed it out. "We'll catch him. And maybe he'll fry, maybe he'll just be in prison for the rest of his days and that's fine with me too. But consider this. Learning how his brain works - yes, it's unsettling, but what if that means the next time someone like this comes around, we can catch him faster?"

Morgan looked at him sharply. "You really think there's more like this out there?"

"Have you seen the pictures of those German camps? Men did that. And other men looked away. A species capable of that is capable of anything." He pulled open the door, then glanced back at him. "Don't be too long. We should get started."

Morgan stood on the stoop for a minute, digesting Hotch's last words. To think that there could more like Holmes out there, so fundamentally broken . . . it chilled his blood.

He thought, _Goddamn if I'm looking away,_ and went inside.

Mrs. Garcia was perched like a pinup girl on the chair at the telephone table, legs crossed. She glanced over her shoulder as he came in, gave him a grin and a finger-wave, and went back to her telephone conversation before he could give his usual cool nod. "You checked both names? Preceding and following months? Okay, how about - what?" She leaned over to look at the clock. "Well, Ben, honey, I know it's almost five, but I'm asking as a friend. We really need this information."

Morgan crossed behind her to the hall closet and slowly put his hat away, unsure why he was lingering, except that the sound of her voice was like an antidote to the conversation outside.

"Tomorrow's okay, but tonight's ideal." Her eyes narrowed momentarily. Then she said in a voice that oozed honey, "Look, darling, do this for me, and I might just prevail upon a certain library clerk to make a date with you."

He turned around to look at her, unsure if he was hearing right.

"That's what I said. Uh-huh." She listened and leaned back in the chair, bouncing one of her ridiculous shoes. "Now, I'm not making any promises. She's her own girl, you know. But I want to remind you that Miss Archer is a very, very sweet natural blonde with perfect 36-24-36 measurements. Oh yes. I know that for a fact. Ran up a dress for her last month. Right. And I'm verrry persuasive." Her voice suddenly turned brisk. "Just how persuasive depends solely on how quickly you call me back." She listened, then grinned broadly and chirped, "Okay, then. I'll be waiting by the phone." She hung up.

"Good god, woman," he said before he could think better of it. "You really have no shame."

She looked up, eyes wide, and then broke out into a smile that seemed to light up the front hallway. "Sawbones took it out with my tonsils," she said airily. "I soldier on."

"Uh-huh. How's your friend going to feel about you arranging her social life?"

"What, Lila? Oh, that's no problem. She goes for the brainy type. I thought about trying to pair her up with Dr. Reid, but you know, our sweet genius saw everyone's favorite angel of mercy, and that was it for him."

"Now, I thought I was the only one who'd spotted that."

She fluttered her lashes. "Honey, the things I know would astonish you."

A silly, flirty retort was on the tip of his tongue. He could almost see her eyes widen and her grin spread, but he recollected that he was _staying away_ from Mrs. Penelope Garcia. No matter how much he wanted to get up next to all that sweetness and warmth and that razor-sharp mind, it would be a bad idea. So he swallowed his words and simply nodded. "I'll bet."

Her smile had barely begun to fade when he turned his back and walked into the dining room.

* * *

Mrs. Garcia followed Morgan into the room, and Hotch noted that she looked a little down. "Mrs. Garcia? Any luck?"

"Not yet, sir, but soon," she said.

"Excellent. Mrs. LaMontagne, go on."

"I was saying that we really should contact the men in all of Holmes' units. Any one of them could be a target, and any one could also have had contact with Holmes."

"That's a lot of men," Morgan said. "How many units did he serve in?"

"Eight over the course of the war," Reid reported. "However, only five of them were out of Fort Hamilton. The others were from other parts of the country, so while we can't rule them out as victims, it's a much lower probability that those men will be in New York City. Currently he's focused his attentions on the Lower East Side. While clearly men who live elsewhere but work in Lower Manhattan are in danger - " He nodded at Morgan. " - three of our four victims both lived and worked in this area."

"Five," Prentiss said. "The kid at Sacred Heart."

"We don't have any information about where he lived or worked, so he's a statistical outlier. I think we should prioritize the men who live south of 14th and east of Fifth."

Rossi pointed out, "We also can rule out anyone above the rank of corporal. Holmes never made it past private. Seems like he's targeting his equals and immediate superiors only. The men he had the most sustained contact with."

Hotch said, "What with promotions, we should probably raise that to sergeant, but good point, Rossi. Mrs. LaMontagne, can you get us back into Fort Hamilton?"

"Oh, no need, sir," Mrs. Garcia said, picking up a folder with a flourish. "I've got the personnel lists right here."

Hotch frowned, taking them. "How did you get those out of the archives?"

Her eyes widened innocently. "I did a thing."

"A thing?"

"Best not to ask about the thing."

"We'll talk about the thing later. Do civilians have access to the city directories at your library?"

"Oh, sir," she said reproachfully. "What do I look like, the FBI? Of course you do."

"Excellent." He passed the lists out, glancing around the table. "We need sergeants or below who served along with Holmes. And of course, men who survived the war."

It was a dull and repetitive task, sorting through the lists and copying the names that fit the categories. At around three hundred men per unit, Hotch estimated they had at least fifteen hundred names to go through, and even with seven people working and one who read as fast as Dr. Reid, it was a slog. The phone rang a couple of times, but it wasn't Mrs. Garcia's contact.

Rossi, who could do paperwork in his sleep, started floating theories of possible jobs for Holmes. "Gotta be a daytime job, probably something with a fair amount of independence and maybe mobility."

"Something easy to get," Morgan said. "He left the other place within a week of being discharged. Salesman?"

Prentiss, who like Hotch had literally done paperwork in a war zone, said absently, "He'd be a terrible salesman. Nobody in their right mind would hire him. Iceman?"

"Half the city's bought refrigerators now," Hotch reminded them, noting down another name. "Ice companies aren't hiring. Delivery boy?"

The phone rang a third time, and Mrs. Garcia went for it again.

"Possible," Rossi said. "Though aren't they generally teenagers?"

"Lot of men taking any job that'll put food on the table these days."

Hotch finished copying down the last name on his list and looked up to see Reid with his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. There was a hectic flush staining the younger man's usually sallow cheeks. Prentiss had paused halfway through a name, pencil poised forgotten in the air, watching him with a line between her brows.

"Reid?" he said.

The other man looked up and quickly put his glasses back on, as if ashamed to be caught without their shielding effect. "Headache," he said curtly.

Hotch left it. "How's your list?"

"Finished." He passed it over.

"Excellent. Why don't you - "

"Wait, wait, wait! Hold everything." Mrs. Garcia sashayed into the room as if she were about to burst into a tap routine. "Because I have dirt." She paused and looked at them all. "Come on, that's your cue to say, 'How dirty are we talking?' and mine to - "

"Consider all that said, Mrs. Garcia. What did you find out?" Hotch discovered he was barely annoyed at her diversions. He was actually getting used to her unique way of imparting information. God help him.

"You people are no fun," she complained. "Ready for this? My source didn't find his birth certificate in 1922, '23, or '24." She perched on the one free chair and crossed her legs, eyes sparkling behind her glasses.

Rossi scowled. "So it's what, a fake name?"

"That is the tempting conclusion, isn't it? But a little more digging turned him up in 1925."

"'25? That would have made him sixteen when he enlisted."

"He lied about his age."

Reid's brows shot up. "Interesting," he muttered.

"It gets better. Remember how he had no next of kin? There's a good reason for that. Father, unknown. Mother, unknown. Your standard baby on the doorstep of a small foundling home about twenty blocks from here. It no longer exists. It closed down for lack of funds in - anybody want to hazard a guess?"

"December 1941," Reid said.

"Give the genius a cookie," Penelope said. "And we all know where he went from there."

"Who ran it?" Rossi asked.

"A charity organization funded it. They're defunct now. I've got some feelers out, I'll find who ran the orphanage itself. Could be he went back to see them."

"You keep on that, Mrs. Garcia," Hotch said, getting to his feet. "Rossi, Morgan, and I will go to the library and cross-reference these lists with the directories to see who's still living in the city, and we'll start making the calls."

Prentiss got to her feet. "Sir, if you run across any AWOL corporals on your list - "

"I'll tell his people to give Sacred Heart a call."

"Thanks, sir."


	14. Chapter 14

Emily checked the time. Almost one. She had to go on rounds in another few minutes, but maybe she had time to call up Hotch and see whether the telephone calls to the local unit members had produced anything. Holmes' schedule gnawed the edges of her mind like a rat in an alley. Today or tomorrow, the next day at the latest. They were running out of time.

She swung by the front desk. "Listen, Dolores, let Dr. Troy know I need to talk to him when he comes in."

"Sure thing. Shouldn't be long."

"Okay, I'll be up on the third floor." She started for the elevator.

"Hey, Em, somebody was just asking about you."

She stopped mid-stride. "Who?"

"Tall skinny guy. Didn't look so good. I nearly checked him in. He just left."

Through the glass front doors, she saw a familiar lanky shape on the sidewalk, just turning away. "Hey!" She sprinted out. "Hey, Dr. Reid!"

He turned. "Oh! Emily."

Close to, she could see what Dolores meant. The shadows under his eyes were more pronounced, and he was so pale it might as well have been December, not August. "Were you looking for me?"

"Yes, I was in the area - " Reid waved a hand, vaguely suggesting a destination somewhere within three square miles. " - so I thought I'd stop by and see if there was any new information about Holmes."

"Hotch'd know first," Emily told him, pointing down the street. "His station's right down there."

"Oh. Yes. I suppose."

"Hey, if there is, come back and tell me?"

He gave her a quick, shy smile. "Of course."

"You know what we need," she mused. "Walkie-talkies to carry around. Or a crank-operated radio, like they had in the Army."

He wrinkled his nose. "I'm not sure I'd like the idea of everyone being able to find me."

"It'd be much easier to know what's going on."

"Mmm . . . still." He gave her another little smile and turned to go.

"Wait," she said. "Professor, are you okay?"

"Yes. Fine."

"You sure? You didn't look so hot last night. Or now, actually. You're not working yourself to death over this case, are you?"

He put his hands in his pockets. "I, uh, I think I'm coming down with a virus of some kind."

"Oh yeah?" She reached out to test his forehead, but he stepped back.

"Nothing serious."

"Well, all right." She gestured over her shoulder. "You know, you're welcome to try out our four-star accommodations any time you like. I know the concierge, I can get you a break."

He made a face. "I don't like hospitals." He looked over his shoulder. "I'll go see if Hotch has any news."

She watched him down the street, then went back into the hospital, thinking hard. That was probably why it took Dolores three tries to get her attention. "Emily. Emily! Em!"

"What?"

The receptionist's eyes were wide. "You'd better duck and cover. The Battleaxe - "

"Nurse Prentiss!"

Emily swore under her breath, but made her face was bland and professional as she turned. "Yes, Matron."

"Mercy General Hospital employs you to care for patients, not stand out on the sidewalk flirting with strange men."

"Well, I admit he's pretty strange, but I wasn't flirting. He's just a friend who stopped by to ask after another friend." Close enough to the truth.

"Another male friend?"

The old standby from her Corps days rose to her lips. "Ma'am."

"You have a lot of male friends, Nurse Prentiss."

"A lot of female friends, too. I'm a friendly person."

They'd attracted a crowd. The matron seemed to ignore them, but Emily watched her eyes and the pleased curl of her mouth and knew she liked having an audience, like a lion about to tear into a Christian in the gladiatorial arena.

"A little _too_ friendly if you ask me." She crossed her arms. "You've been buzzing around the doctors lately - Hightower, Connelly."

"Looking into something."

"You've got all these boyfriends visiting you at work, calling up."

"Just friends."

"And of course we all know what happened when Dr. Cooley visited."

Emily had no answer for that.

"Mercy General has no place for a nurse who doesn't know how to behave herself, Prentiss. Clean out your locker."

"Fine," Emily bit out. She turned to Dolores. "When Dr. Troy gets back, tell him I was looking at Mr. Gunderson in room 3F, and his meds need adjusting. His blood pressure's up and his heart rate's not what I'd like either."

Dolores, bless her, only darted one wide-eyed look at Matron before saying, "Sure, I'll tell him."

"Don't you dare, Nurse Pedroza."

Emily turned her head to glare into the matron's red face. "Are you really," she said in a voice dripping with scorn, "going to put Mr. Gunderson's life at risk because you're steamed at me?"

Matron had been a good nurse, once upon a time, before she got a taste of red tape and power. Whatever vestige of that good nurse that was left made her look away and bark, "Nurse Benton! Deliver that message to Dr. Troy when he arrives."

"Thank you," Emily snarled, and pushed through the crowd of nurses to the locker room.

* * *

She changed out of her uniform and emptied her locker, aware that eyes followed her every move, waiting for her to burst into tears or hysterics. Well, they weren't going to get their show. Just like in Europe, there were things to get done, and no time for histrionics. That finishing school might have damn near finished _her_ off, but by God, she'd learned how to wall off her feelings. She packed them away in a box, closing the lid as firmly as she closed her locker.

She'd known it would happen soon anyway, she thought as she went out the door. Just not this soon. She tightened her hand around her bag, hoisted her chin, and kept walking.

The usual sidewalk traffic swirled around her, blessedly anonymous. A vendor did brisk business on the corner, under a blue-and-white striped umbrella that blared "RED HOT frankfurters and ICE COLD drinks."

She put her hand in her pocket, feeling around for a nickel, but before she could pull one out, another customer walked past her, taking the first bite of his hot dog with the works. The smell of sauerkraut, mustard, and sweet onions hit her stomach like a fist. She slapped a hand over her mouth, feeling bile rise up her throat, and backed away.

Not this, not here, not now.

Her heels banged firmly into a set of steps, and she almost fell over backward. She closed her eyes and pressed her other hand to her stomach, as if pressure could make it behave.

"Lady? Hey, lady, you okay?"

"Somebody call a doctor - "

She shook her head hard. Any doctor would come from Mercy, and that would be the crowning, final humiliation of the past hour.

"Emily? Emily!"

She risked opening her eyes and looked into the worried face of Dr. Reid.

"Are you okay? No. Should I - Can I - " His narrow hand fluttered around her shoulders like a nervous butterfly. "Do you want to sit down? Do you want - Wait. Wait here." He bolted away.

So much for the knight in shining armor.

But the thought had barely finished when he was back, a bottle in his hand. "Ginger ale," he said, hefting it.

Cookie-tossing was less imminent now. She took her hand away from her mouth and breathed carefully. Then she lowered herself inch by inch until she was sitting on the sun-warmed steps.

He sat down beside her, his long legs folding up until they seemed ready to hit his ears. He offered the bottle.

She took it and sipped, slowly.

"Are you okay now, honey?" one of the hoverers asked. "My boy can still run over."

"I don't need a doctor," she managed. "Just some air. The sun - " She tilted her hat lower over her eyes, as if avoiding the glare, and took another sip of ginger ale.

"The sun, of course," someone said. "Get to anyone, this heat."

One of the men addressed Dr. Reid. "Is this your wife?"

"She's a friend. I'll take care of her. Thank you."

Eventually the crowd drifted away, leaving them in blessed solitude. Emily concentrated on drinking her ginger ale in tiny swigs, knowing that the questions would come, because he wasn't stupid. He was a goddamned genius, in fact, and nobody ever got heat stroke walking three hundred feet down the sidewalk with a hat on.

Reid said, "Ginger ale may be the most effective anti-emetic ever devised. The carbonation reacts with excess gas in your stomach, and of course, ginger is a natural anti-nausea remedy."

She stared at the lip of the bottle. "Oh yeah?"

"Indeed yes. Ginger has been cultivated for thousands of years. It's actually a root, you know. _Zingibar officinale_. It's so well-known that it lends its name to the entire genus of plants to which it belongs, which include such notable spices as turmeric and cardamom."

"I have no idea what those are."

"Few in the West do, but they're used heavily in Oriental cooking. Interestingly enough, ginger's been cultivated for so long that it actually no longer grows wild anywhere in the world."

"How about that," she said. A little burp forced its way up. Her stomach had settled, but her temples were damp with sweat and her knees still felt like tapioca pudding. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, slow and controlled.

"It's used in any number of dishes in the Orient. It has a very pungent, distinctive flavor. If you go to Chinatown, you could probably buy it raw, whole, grated, shredded, or pickled."

He wasn't going to ask, she realized as he nattered on. He wasn't saving it for later or for a time when her guard was down. He simply wasn't going to ask. And if he'd actually figured it out, he wasn't looking at her differently, the way most men would. He just sat there, talking about . . . "Professor?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you seriously just talk about ginger for about five minutes straight?"

"Not that long. It just felt like that long because you were ill. Better?"

She burped again. "Yes."

"Good."

"You're something, Dr. Reid," she said. "You are something, all right."

"I've heard that." He shifted, stretching out his legs so a pedestrian was forced to step over them. He didn't seem to notice the dirty look. "You didn't want a doctor."

"No."

"Why not? It would have been one of your friends - "

"I don't have any friends there anymore." She nudged her bag. "Mercy General Hospital has decided it no longer requires my services."

He frowned. "Will you be all right?"

"I think I can hold my lunch now."

"Well, that too."

She rested her cheek against the cool glass of the ginger ale bottle. "I can take care of myself, professor."

"Yes," he said. "I thought that's what you'd say."

Silence fell again. Afraid of the next subject he could conjure up, she jumped into one herself. "So, what news from Hotch? I'm guessing there _was_ news, since you were coming back this way." Someone cursed at Reid's long legs, still taking up half the sidewalk, and Emily said, "Yeah, same to you, buddy."

Reid folded his legs up again. "Mrs. Garcia found the name and address of the woman who ran the foundling home where Holmes grew up."

Emily sat up. "No foolin'? What'd she say?"

"Uh, nothing. She doesn't have a phone. I'm going down there to interview her."

She looked at the bottle again. It was almost empty.

She couldn't go home. Her being home in the middle of the day would be as good as a headline that she'd lost her job, and Lynch would kick her out before she had time to say, "Savings." She could go over to Penelope's library and use up her afternoon with a book. She could go to J.J.'s and see if she needed any help making calls. But she didn't want to do any of those things. She wanted to climb into a cab and go chase down the threads of a killer's past with a man who knew the Latin name for ginger and didn't bring up the most obvious question there was in this situation.

But she didn't want to ask him if she could go along, like a kid begging to go to the park after a bad day at school.

"I think you should come," he said.

"You do, do you?"

"You're much better with people than I am. I think Hotch sent me because nobody else was free."

She downed the last swallow. "Well, my schedule has just opened up for the afternoon."

"That it has," he said, taking the bottle from her and hopping up to give it back to the vendor, while Emily gathered up her bag and resettled her hat. She took the hand he offered and got to her feet, glancing up and down the street. Ha, a cab. She stuck her pinkies in the corners of her mouth and let out a whistle that pierced the noise of traffic like a spear. A cab swerved up to the pavement.

"Nice," he approved.

"Thanks," she said, suddenly light-hearted. "Shall we?"

* * *

Hester Frankel looked old enough to have put diapers on Moses, but she still had all her faculties. She pointed them at shabby horsehair armchairs and poured faintly tinted water that probably would have been tea about four pots ago. "Mind if I smoke?"

Reid frowned and opened his mouth. Emily shook her head at him. Clearly, whatever they said, Mrs. Frankel was going to smoke. If it made her comfortable, then Emily could deal with the queasiness even if they had to get another ginger ale after.

Reid shut his mouth, but got up and opened the window. Mrs. Frankel gave him an amused look and lit up, proving her eyesight wasn't doing too bad either. "I ran that damn place for forty years, and I got kicked to the curb when the money ran out."

"Terrible," Emily agreed, grateful for the slight breeze that pulled the smoke out the window. "You keep up with any of the kids still?"

"Some. I get visits. A little money sometimes."

Emily reached out and took her free hand. "I know it's hard on your own."

She nodded. "It is at that." She looked at her hand when Emily let it go, and nodded again at the bill that had made the transfer. "You thinking of any kid in particular?"

"Wendell Holmes?" Reid said, looking at the bill too. "He lived there from 1925 to when it closed down."

She leaned back, tucking the money into her withered bosom with no apparent shame. "Wendell," she said. "Jesus. What a weird kid. Haven't thought of him in years. He was never quite right."

"How do you mean?"

"Just odd. He got placed a couple of times. Families, apprenticeships, whatnot. He always got bounced back." She shook her head. "Not quite right. He went in the army in the end. Best place for him."

He'd been sixteen, and clearly this woman had been happy to have him off her hands. "Did he write to you during the war?"

"Nah."

"Has he contacted you since?"

"No, I didn't even know he made it through." She didn't sound too broken up by that.

Reid leaned forward. "These placements. Do you have records?"

She waved the cigarette at a stack of cardboard boxes that seemed to be holding up one wall. "Haven't burned 'em for firewood yet. You can look through them if you like."

The boxes were unlabeled, higgledy-piggledy. Reid looked at them with concern. "Do you remember where his records might be?"

"Maybe."

Emily shot Reid a look. He said, "Oh," and pulled out his wallet.

The old woman looked at the bill he gave her and got creakily to her feet. "Let me pull them out for you."

Reid flicked through the pages of the ledger she retrieved, studying them closely. Emily kept prodding the old woman's memory. "Was there anybody he was particularly close with, in the home? Another kid? A maid or a handyman? Anybody."

"No. Like I said, there was something off about him. Always." Hester knocked ash off her cigarette. "What'd he do?"

"How do you know he did anything?"

The old woman looked sublimely unconcerned. "Told you. He was off. Only a matter of time, if you ask me."

* * *

They stopped by the foundling home, which was boarded up and derelict. Reid didn't think he would be holing up there, and after one look at the place, Emily had to agree.

"He didn't maintain ties with Mrs. Frankel," Reid said, peering at the windows. "Or to anyone. It's unlikely he had any particular affection for this geographical location."

Emily tested the door, then the windows. Shut tight, painted over. They circled around the building and found it the same all over. Back on the sidewalk, she stood looking up at the building, thinking about a kid who'd probably never seen this as home, even though he'd lived here all his life. Except for occasional placements that didn't work out.

"All he ever really belonged to was the Army," Reid said reflectively.

"And they bounced him out too," she said.

They checked the placements, but mostly for form's sake. None of them had heard tell of Holmes since he'd left their house or employ, and they all seemed to like that just fine. Reid called Hotch while Emily leaned against the glass of the phone booth and tried to convince herself that all this chasing around was producing little clues that would suddenly come together

"They haven't uncovered much either," Reid reported. "What now?"

"Back to J.J.'s, I guess."

The cabbie was Russian, and brightened up perceptibly when she spoke to him in his language. He tried to recommend his sister's restaurant for dinner, but took it philosophically when she repeated J.J.'s address.

"Where did you learn Russian and Polish?" Reid asked as the cab pulled away from the curb. "Did you grow up on the Lower East Side?"

She laughed without humor. "Hardly. I had a Polish nanny. And a Russian cook."

He thought. "Ah. Yes. That would do it."

She turned to look at him. He didn't look shocked. "You realize what kind of people have nannies and cooks?"

"Wealthy people generally," he said.

She shook her head. "Every time I think I have you figured out, professor . . ."

"There's a Prentiss family that lives on Park Avenue. Supporters of the university. I assume you're one of their daughters?"

"Biologically, yes."

His fingers tapped his knee, and he glanced carefully at the cabbie. "Will they help you out?"

"Even if they offered, I wouldn't take it."

He frowned.

"Look, professor, like you said. I'm a Prentiss of the Park Avenue Prentisses, with more breeding than a French poodle, and more training than a show horse. Prentiss women marry doctors. They don't become nurses and they certainly don't join the Corps. I've been the family disappointment for years, and disappointments get buried as deep in the closet as they can manage. We parted ways a long time ago, and that's the way I like it."

"Emily - " he said.

If that was pity in his face, she was getting out of this cab right now, even if they were going forty miles an hour. "I'll be fine, professor," she said coolly, staring out the window. "I don't need them; I can handle it myself."

They turned a corner, and somebody's horn blared. The cabbie swore in Russian, then remembered she could understand him and said, _"Izvinyayus!"_ over his shoulder. She waved a hand to indicate she'd heard worse.

"So, professor. Why are you here?"

"That's an interesting question. Lots of philosophical and religious implications."

"I mean, in this cab instead of up at Columbia. Don't you have lectures to write? Co-eds to seduce?"

"I'm concentrating on my dissertation at the moment. This case is furnishing some intriguing research. I need to finish it as soon as possible."

She thought about pointing out that he most certainly was not working on his dissertation right now, but didn't. "What's the rush?"

His fingers tapped restlessly on his knee again. "I just need to finish it," he repeated.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the 1940s, Ashley was a boy's name. I couldn't resist.

The clock was ticking down, and all their efforts seemed to produce was dead ends. Morgan been a PI long enough to know it happened sometimes, but still, it grated on his nerves.

Rossi said, "That's police work for you, son," and went on studying Reid's notes about Holmes' placements as a kid.

Hotch said, "What are you thinking, Dave?"

"Two out of his four positions were in the newspaper industry. Paper boy and printer's devil. What if he went back to that in some way?"

The phone rang. Morgan, being closest to the door, went for it. They'd all given Mrs. LaMontagne's telephone number in their endless telephone calls, and men had been calling back all day. "Hello?"

"Is Captain Rossi there?"

"Who is this?"

From his voice, the man wasn't much into his twenties, but he spoke with the too-early authority of a child who'd gone to war and come back again. "My name is Ashley Seaver. He called earlier and talked to my pop. Something about a guy who served with me in the 127th?"

"Wendell Holmes," Morgan supplied.

"Are you Captain Rossi?"

"Name's Morgan, but I'm working with Rossi on this case. Have you seen or spoken to Holmes since you got back from Europe?"

"Yessir, about five or six weeks ago. What's this about?"

Morgan went tense, but kept his voice even. Seaver wasn't the first person that Holmes contacted. Most of them had spoken to him once and hadn't heard back. "He's wanted for questioning in a murder case. Do you know where he's living now?"

"I know where he works, does that help?"

"Where?" Morgan said sharply.

"He drives a delivery truck for the _New York Times_. His route's on the Lower East Side, and I think he maybe lives down there. He told me he was out of the Army and looking for work, so I talked my uncle into hiring him. He's really wanted for murder?"

"Yeah, he is. You need to be careful. He's targeting men he served with overseas. If he turns up again, you call this number right away and for god's sake, don't go anywhere with him. You see him on the street, you take off the other way."

Seaver said slowly, "Has he killed someone from the 127th?"

Morgan swallowed. "Yeah. Man name of Barney Finks."

There was an audible gasp over the line. "Corporal Finks is dead? When?"

"Two, three weeks ago."

"Ah, Jesus. I - I didn't know. I didn't hear. You sure it was him?"

"Yeah. I'm a friend of his, identified the body."

"Oh, God. Did I miss his funeral? Must've, two weeks ago . . . Where's he buried? His ma's still alive, isn't she? I should visit. Where does she live? Does she need anything?"

Morgan broke in on the choked ramblings. "Save your questions, soldier. I need that work address and telephone number."

"Yessir. Understood." The younger man gave him the information in a voice that sounded as if he were controlling it by the skin of his teeth.

Morgan started to hang up, then paused. "Seaver?"

"Yessir?"

"You gave us a hell of a lead and you can be proud of that."

"Finks was a good man, sir. Saved my bacon a couple of times. Catch that son-of-a-bitch that killed him, Mr. Morgan. Make him pay."

"I can promise you I will." He disconnected, then dialed the telephone number of the distribution office.

Five minutes later, he had a home address for Holmes and the information that he was a terrible employee, always turning up late in the morning and taking forever on his routes, which covered most of the Lower East Side. He'd gone home a half hour before.

The paper felt as heavy as a loaded gun in Morgan's hand. He could call a cab right now, slip away, and go get Holmes all on his own.

He lifted his hand off the receiver and turned toward the dining room. "Hotch? Think I got something."

* * *

Holmes lived above a grocery store in Alphabet City. The door to the apartment creaked and bowed as Rossi thumped it. "Holmes! This is the police!"

Hotch put his hand on Rossi's shoulder. "Wait." He raised his voice. "Private Holmes! This is Captain Hotchner. I order you to open this door!" He paused, listened. "Private Holmes! _Open the door!"_

Nothing.

Morgan took two steps back and hurled himself at the door. The cheap wood crunched. "Door's open," he said, and rushed inside, gun raised.

Rossi looked at Hotch. "Well, I was going to bribe the landlord, but this works too."

It was a dim, cramped one-room apartment. Even if Hotch hadn't known the inhabitant was a military man, he would have been able to tell from the order and cleanliness. The blanket on the narrow iron bedstead was tucked tight enough to bounce a quarter off. But before Morgan called out, "Clear!" from the bathroom, Hotch knew Holmes wasn't there.

He swore. "Did he go out the window?"

"Closed," Morgan reported, coming back in. "He was gone already."

Rossi had gone to the wall, staring up at what covered it. "Boys, c'mere and have a look."

They went. It turned out to be a map with notes pinned to it, and several marks on the map itself. It was almost the twin of the one Dr. Reid had put up in Mrs. LaMontagne's dining room. Almost, except that there were many more marks.

"Jesus," Morgan breathed.

"How many you figure?" Rossi asked them.

"Fifteen?" Hotch guessed, eyes flicking over the notes. Days, times, addresses. Routines. "Twenty?"

"Looks like recon," Morgan said.

"Exactly what it is," Rossi said. He touched two points, marked in blood-red ink with dates. "Garner. And Wilton."

"Barney," Morgan said, findng a third point.

"McLeod," Hotch said. His eyes traveled down and over, and he stiffened. "Where's that restaurant of Tambour's?"

"Off Water Street, Prentiss said."

Hotch laid his finger on a red date. The ink was so fresh it smeared under his touch. "He is a target. Tonight's."

* * *

J.J. hung up. "Tambour's not at the restaurant. He left with another man. Sounded like Holmes."

Emily frowned. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't know." She narrowed her eyes, thinking hard. "Dr. Reid, how long will it take for Hotch, Rossi, and Morgan to get across town again?"

"Even if they manage to get a police car, at least fifteen minutes."

J.J. said, "But we're much closer. Emily, I think you and I wear the same shoe size. My bedroom is upstairs at the end of the hall. I've got a couple of pairs of shoes we can run in." She pulled the chain off over her head and found the key that nestled next to Will's tags. "And get what's locked in the bedside table, top drawer."

"Right," Emily said, and took off for the stairs.

J.J. went into the dining room, opened a cabinet, and spun the dial of the safe. It popped open, and she pulled out her father's service weapon, then a box of ammo.

Behind her, Penelope said, "That's a gun. Y-you have gun."

"I tried shooting burglars with a banana, but it didn't work," J.J. said absently, loading the magazine. She looked up and caught the frozen look on Penelope's face. With a jolt, she realized that the other woman hadn't been raised by a career military man who believed that everyone should be able to handle and respect firearms.

She double-checked the safety and set the fully loaded gun down on the table. Then she went and took the other woman's hands, carefully interposing her body in between Penelope's eyes and the weapon. "Listen. I need someone to stay with Henry. And someone's got to let the others know what's happening if they call back. Can I count on you?"

Penelope nodded, eyes still wide. "Yes. Absolutely. I-I can do that. I can do that."

J.J. squeezed her hands. "I know you can." She turned to Dr. Reid. "What do you know about guns?"

He glanced over her shoulder. He didn't have the same horrified look as Penelope, but his expression was detached and curious, as if he were studying a rare specimen in a zoo. "I understand the physics behind the firing mechanism."

"So in other words, you've never touched one?"

"Correct."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but - "

"Statistically speaking, the vast majority of accidental injuries or deaths by gunshot are due to inexperience with the weapon." At her look, he clarified, "I don't want it. That's fine."

Emily came in, arms full. "How often do you clean this?" She set Will's service weapon on the table, handed J.J. one pair of shoes, and started changing into the other.

"Both of them every week," J.J. said, kicking off her pumps and unlacing her battered, muddy gardening shoes. "How's your marksmanship?"

"Rusty, but I could probably do serious damage to the broad side of a barn." She picked up Will's gun and popped out the magazine to check it.

J.J. could have told her it was loaded, but she knew the necessity of familiarizing yourself with your weapon. "I'm out of practice myself," she said instead. "With any luck we won't have to fire them."

Penelope burst out, "Emily, you're not going too, are you?"

The other woman glanced up in surprise. "I hope like hell my field expertise won't be needed, but just in case - "

Penelope reached out and took her arm, lowering her voice. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Y'know, considering?"

Emily gave her a look that, to J.J.'s mind, was interestingly repressive. "I'll be fine." She checked the safety, then slid the gun into her pocket.

"But - "

"We'll probably get there and Hotch will have him in the back of the paddy wagon already."

Penelope rolled her eyes. "No he won't. That's why you're going at all, because it'll take too long for them to get there."

"No flies on you." Emily gave her a quick hug. "I'm not going into this alone, okay? J.J. and the professor will take care of me."

Reid frowned. "Emily, I'm not armed."

She turned to him. "Oh, yes, you are. Far as I'm concerned, these guns are backup." She tapped his temple before he could dodge. "This here is the heavy artillery. Now, are we going to stand around jawing all day long, or are we gonna go?"

* * *

In the kind of luck that never happened in New York City, they flagged down a cab half a block from J.J.'s house. At the restaurant, a skeptical waiter pointed them in the direction that Tambour and Holmes had gone. He was clearly humoring a couple of hysterical girls, and Emily tamped down the desire to clobber him with the butt of her gun. They didn't have time for that.

"Call the police," J.J. called over her shoulder as they burst out of the door and onto the sidewalk.

Reid babbled as they ran, nervous as a kid going into his first battle. "He prefers alleys. Enclosed, away from streetlights, few to no windows - "

Emily held up her hand. "Wait. Shh. Listen."

For a moment, there was silence. Then, a hard _crack_ , and an agonized male scream.

"Oh, Jesus," she said, whirling. "Where was that from?"

"Over there!" Reid darted across the street. Emily swore and bolted after him. If he got himself shot, she was going to kill him.

He'd stopped in the mouth of the alley, a fabulous way to get his head blown off because whoever was down there would see his shadow outlined by the streetlights. She reached out to grab his coat, then saw what had stopped him and drew her gun.

"Are they there?" J.J. hissed, coming up behind her.

"Yeah, but uh, there's a wrinkle." Emily swallowed and cocked her gun. The heavy click seemed to echo off the narrow alley's walls. "Tambour? Put the gun down."


	16. Chapter 16

The streetlamps flashed yellow off the barrel of the gun that Tambour held. He braced himself against the wall, most of his weight on one leg. The other looked . . . wrong somehow. His toe touched the ground, and Reid just caught the faint gasp of pain. But the gun held steady. "He just attacked me with a crowbar and you want _me_ to put it down? Hell, no."

Beside Reid, Emily said, "Tambour, listen. Your leg is broken. You know that, right? Even if you don't feel any pain yet, you've got chills, dizziness, maybe some nausea. That's your body going into shock. You need to put the gun down so I can get you splinted and to the nearest hospital."

Tambour gritted his teeth and inclined his head toward the man he faced. "Not while _he's_ still armed."

The other man said, "Who are you people?"

Reid stepped forward, ignoring the faint noise of protest from Emily. "Private Holmes? Private Wendell Holmes?"

The long shaft of the crowbar dipped slightly in Wendell Holmes' hands, and that caught the light too. Dark iron. Heavy enough to break bones. More bones. "Who are you?" he asked again. "Why did you interrupt me?" His voice was petulant, like a child's. But he'd killed four men and was willing to kill at least one more tonight.

_Trust the profile. Emily said you were the heavy artillery in this battle. You know Holmes' mind. You know what he'll do. Trust that knowledge; it's more powerful than any gun._

Reid's stomach quivered, and he had to swallow to keep the same quiver out of his voice. "My name is Dr. Spencer Reid. This is Lieutenant Prentiss here, of the Army Nurse Corps, and Mrs. LaMontagne. Her husband was Private William LaMontagne. You knew him, didn't you? From Foxtrot Company? 3rd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment. You remember serving with him?"

Holmes's eyes darted past Reid. "Jenny," he said. "He used to read your letters to his friends." His face twisted. "Not me. I wasn't his friend."

No, that connection wouldn't be productive.

Reid remembered Hester Frankel's callous indifference to his fate. After a lifetime of rejection or indifference from peers and parental figures, Holmes yearned for acceptance, and if not acceptance, approval. He had to invoke an authority figure, one who'd shown him approval in the past.

"Captain Hotchner is on his way, you know," Reid said. "You - you remember Captain Hotchner, don't you, Private Holmes? He commanded Foxtrot Company. He promoted you. He recognized your qualities."

The hardness in Holmes's face cracked. "Captain Hotchner?" Then the crack closed over. "I don't believe you."

"I'm not lying. He knows what you've been doing, too."

The crack opened again, and what shone out was a horrible, flattered pleasure. "He does?"

Reid swallowed. "Absolutely he does. And I - I'm very sure he'd like it if you put that crowbar down."

"But he knows what I've been doing. He knows why." Holmes looked at Tambour. "Men like that aren't supposed be in the Army."

Tambour bared his teeth. "Men like _you_ shouldn't be in the Army."

Face horribly empty, Holmes pulled the crowbar back for another swing.

_"Private Holmes,_ " Hotch snarled, striding past Reid. _"Put it the hell down."_

The crowbar clattered to the ground, but nobody relaxed. Holmes still wore his M1911, and Tambour's gun was still aimed at his head.

Shadows crawled along the pavement. From the builds, Reid concluded that Rossi and Morgan had joined Emily and Mrs. LaMontagne at the mouth of the alley behind him. He had no doubt that they had their guns drawn too, making him the only person in this alley without access to a firearm of some sort. He felt like a teaching assistant who'd wandered into the OK Corral.

Hotch said, "Tambour, you too. Lower your gun."

"No."

"You're in a bad way." He moved towards Tambour, his steps as smooth and steady as his voice. "If you don't put it down soon, you'll drop it."

"He killed Doug, sir." The barrel of the gun dipped and wobbled. No doubt Tambour was finally feeling the effects of his broken leg, just as Emily had told him.

"I know," Hotch said. His hand flashed out and caught the gun, and there was a general gasp of relief.

Tambour sagged against the wall. Emily started forward, lowering her gun, but froze and yanked it back up when Holmes drew his own.

"Holmes!" Hotch barked. "Stand down!"

Holmes looked around, clearly surprised to find himself now the focus of all the firepower. "Sir," he said, amazed. "I have to finish what I started."

"No, you don't. And you won't."

"But sir, that doctor said you knew what I was doing."

"Yes," Hotch said. "I do know. Randall Garner, Walter Wilton, Barney Finks, and Doug McLeod. Why?"

Holmes looked at him as if he couldn't believe he had to explain. "They were tarnishing the honor of the United States Army, sir. They had to pay. I made them pay."

If he felt at all sick at the other man's words, Hotch's face didn't show it. "Who ordered you to do this?"

"Nobody, sir. I'm showing initiative." He said it with shiny-faced pride, and Reid felt his spine crawl. "You say officer material shows initiative and critical thinking. I planned this operation myself. I can show you my preparations if you like."

"Holmes, are you their captain?"

Uncertainty snuck in. "No, sir."

"Who is Tambour's captain?"

A long moment passed. "You are, sir."

Hotch's face might have been carved out of stone. "Vigilantism is conduct unbefitting a soldier, Private Holmes. Put the gun down on the ground."

Reid held his breath. This was pushing the soft edges of his profile, where he had no idea exactly what the man would do. Submit to the authority figure he idolized? Or explode in rage at yet another rejection?

"On the ground. That's an order."

With glacial slowness, Holmes lowered the gun, then started to crouch. A flicker of motion caught the corner of Reid's eye. He looked over just in time to see Tambour lurch forward, hand outstretched for the gun that Holmes was laying down. As if in slow motion, Reid saw his fingers, unable to get a good grip, knock it loose from Holmes' hand instead.

Hotch roared, " _Down!"_

* * *

Hotch lifted his head, ears ringing from the blast. The air stank of gunpowder. He took stock. Nothing hurt, no heat, no numbness. The gun lay near him. He pulled it close, re-engaged the safety, and popped the clip out of the gun, throwing them far apart from each other.

"Anybody hit?" he called out. "Everyone okay?" He counted the various affirmative responses. Five. His whole team.

Prentiss scrambled past him, headed for Tambour, who looked as if he'd passed out.

Holmes lay face-down on the ground a few feet away. "Holmes. Are you hit?"

The younger man looked up, then closed his eyes again.

"Holmes, answer me."

"No, sir," he muttered into the concrete.

Morgan arrived then, catching the man's wrists and pulling them behind his back. Holmes let himself be secured, docile as a doll.

"Hotch, a little help here?" Prentiss called out.

He helped her roll Tambour to his back. No holes, no blood. The shifting of his broken leg brought the man back to consciousness with a low moan. He opened his eyes and saw Hotch. "Sir? You all right?"

"We're all fine. What the hell were you thinking?"

Tambour turned his face away, his breath coming in gasps as Prentiss's searching fingers found the site of the break. "Well, soldier, you are a lucky bastard," she informed him. "It's a nasty break, but the bone stayed inside the skin where it belongs. We need to get this foot elevated, though. Hotch, give me your jacket, would you?" she asked, stripping off her own.

Mrs. LaMontagne came up. "Rossi went to call the police and the ambulance," she said. "They should be here soon."

Prentiss nodded, bending over Tambour. "Hear that? We'll get you fixed up in no time. Did he hit you anywhere else?"

"No," he said dully. "Just the leg." He was looking over at Holmes, still on the ground.

Hotch clasped his shoulder. "He'll pay for what he did. I'll make sure of it. He's admitted it in front of witnesses, and we've got evidence coming out our ears. He's not getting away with it."

The shoulder under his hand heaved with a sob. "It won't bring Doug back."

"No," Hotch said. "I'm sorry."

He closed his eyes, and tears shone at the seam of his eyelids. "You know about him and me?"

"Yes."

"You think I'm a pervert, sir?"

Hotch chose his words carefully. "I think you're in pain, and you did a goddamn dumb thing tonight but you wouldn't be the first and you won't be the last."

Mrs. LaMontagne knelt at his head. "Mr. Tambour? I'm Mrs. LaMontagne. We met at the funeral, and spoke on the phone."

He opened his eyes and looked up at her. "You're _her_ friend, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Know what the worst part is? After losing him?"

"I don't know," Mrs. LaMontagne said softly. "Tell me."

"She's his widow. Not me."

Hotch looked at J.J., all at sea.

She lifted her head. "Annabelle McLeod can wear black for the rest of her life if she wants. Everyone will understand, because she lost her husband."

Then he understood, too. Annabelle McLeod's grief was official, permitted, public. To the world, Tambour had been merely McLeod's best friend, and his grief had to be secret, revealed only to a few.

She dropped her gaze again, and smoothed Tambour's sweaty hair. "It won't always be this bad, you know," she said softly. "It won't always hurt this much. I know it seems impossible, but it _will_ get better. Someday."

Tambour said, "Someday isn't today. Not for me."

* * *

Morgan knew his knee was too high up on Holmes' back, his weight pushed too heavy into that knee. Holmes was making choking sounds into the concrete, writhing weakly.

He'd killed Barney.

Morgan leaned in harder.

Rossi's hand settled on his shoulder. "Ease up, now," he said quietly. "You've got him. He's down."

Morgan shook his head. "He might make a break for it."

They both knew it was patently ludicrous. He'd been disarmed twice over, and Morgan had both hands twisted tight behind his back, gripped hard. More than that, Hotch's anger - no, his stern disapproval - had broken Holmes like nothing else could.

But he'd taken Barney away before Morgan could forgive him.

Under him, Holmes made a bubbling sort of noise. Rossi's grip on his shoulder tightened, ever so slightly. "Barney wouldn't want it like this, son."

He paused, then shifted his weight, lifting his knee. "No way of knowing that," he said.

"Mmm. You got cuffs?"

"Right-side pocket," Morgan grunted. Technically speaking not civilian-issue, but awfully handy in his work.

Rossi locked the cuffs around Holmes' wrist in practiced motions, and nodded. "I've got him from here."

Morgan got up and walked away.

Miss Prentiss was hunched over Tambour's leg. Hotch and Mrs. LaMontagne sat at the patient's head, murmuring to him. Morgan looked around for the last member of their merry band, who he would have expected to be hovering over Rossi and Holmes, peppering the latter with questions. He spotted the young doctor in the shadows, sitting against the wall. Probably about to throw up. If Morgan had a nickel for every cadet he'd ever seen puke after their first battle . . .

Morgan went over to him, prepared to hold his head but hoping it wouldn't come to that. "So, kid," he said, forcing a light and careless tone. "What'd you think of your first - " He got a better look at Reid and every cell in his body seemed to seize up at once. _"Miss Prentiss!"_

The frantic note in his voice made everyone jump. When the nurse saw what he was shouting about, she blurted, "Oh, my God," scrambled across the dirty alley so fast she banged one knee on the far wall, and swore.

Blood was everywhere.

Morgan was on his knees, pulling at Reid's hands where they covered his face. "Kid. Look at me. Where're you hit? What hurts? Tell me!" He checked his shoulders, his chest, his stomach. All were spattered with blood, but it seemed to coming up from somewhere higher. He thought of that damn bullet. Had it gone into Reid's face? His head?

"I'be dot hit," he said, his voice muffled and nasal. "I'be dot hit. I swear."

Morgan watched a thick red drop slide down Reid's arm and drip off his elbow. "So you, what, spontaneously started bleeding?"

Prentiss gently peeled his hand away. "Let me see."

He let her. "I was duckig ad I hit by face. It's a bloody doze."

There were no holes that shouldn't be there, and the waterfall of blood was, indeed, coming from his nostrils. Morgan's heart started beating again, but he said, "Kid, I've seen pigs bleed less than this." He addressed Prentiss. "It's gotta be broken."

"It's dot brokid," Reid insisted. "I'be a bleeder, all right?"

She prodded the bridge of his nose, already swollen, and another red gush painted his mouth and chin. "He's right, it's not," she told Morgan. She raised her voice "Just a bloody nose, everyone. As you were." She folded up a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to Reid. "Here. Put your head back and use this to soak it up."

"I hate doig that," he complained, following orders and closing his eyes. "It always goes dowd by throat whed I do that."

"Too damn bad."

"But the blood - !" Morgan couldn't believe how blase they were both being.

She said to Reid, "Did you hit your mouth? Bite your tongue? Knock a tooth loose maybe?" Her fingers pressed lightly along his cheek and jaw, leaving bloody trails behind.

He said wearily, eyes still closed, "Just by dose. Ebily, I do't wat to go to the hospital."

Her hand settled on his cheek, cupping it. She stared down into his face. He opened his eyes, looking back up at her for a long moment. Then he closed them again.

Morgan felt as if there had been a whole conversation that he hadn't heard.

She let out her breath and looked up. "Bloody noses can be dramatic. Make sure he keeps holding that there. You got a handkerchief on you?"

He patted his breast pocket automatically. "Yeah."

"Give him that if the first one gets soaked." She levered herself up.

He'd seen goddamn bloody noses before, and this was beyond dramatic. "Miss Prentiss - "

"Morgan, he's a grown man. He's conscious and lucid and if he doesn't want to go to the hospital, the Surgeon General couldn't make him. And honestly, it would probably be a waste of everyone's time. You want to do something, get him a cab and make sure he gets home. I've got another patient to see to." She went back to Tambour.

Not long after - still too long for Morgan's comfort - Reid muttered, "It's stopped."

"Let me see." Morgan peeled the handkerchief away and squinted at him in the half-light. He was right. No more blood seeped out. He sighed and tossed the handkerchief away. It was a loss anyway. "How do you feel?"

"Strange." His voice was still thick, but not quite so nasal anymore.

"You bled like a stuck pig."

"No, not that. I'm used to that."

Morgan frowned.

Reid gestured. "No, I mean, the man. The killer. Holmes."

"That we coulda been killed? All those guns waving around - " And the kid had been the only one without one. "Yeah, it's a hell of a moment, the first time you're staring down a barrel."

"Not that so much," Reid said. "Although it was a unique experience for me, I grant you." He rubbed at his chin, and flakes of dried blood broke away. "I read about these men," he said distantly. "I write about them. I've even interviewed some, and they told me what they did, and how they did it, and how they _enjoyed_ it - "

Morgan suppressed a shudder.

"But until just a little while ago, I didn't realize the full scope of how damaged he was. And there was Mr. Tambour, broken, temporarily, and he would have killed Holmes just the same as Holmes would have killed him, and they both would have had very good reasons, in their minds. But only one of them is officially . . . It's not that far to go," he said quietly. "Not for any of us. We're all fragile. We can all break."

"Rethinking your thesis?"

"Yes," Reid said.

"Something nice and safe next time?"

"No. Refocusing on the roots of such a pathology. The general thrust is quite good. More important than I realized. When I thought of it, I considered it of academic interest merely, but you know this kind of research could help catch more criminals," he said as if he'd just thought of it. "That's good, to know people can actually use it."

"We used it," Morgan said. "You helped bring in Holmes."

"Not in time for your friend. I'm sorry."

"Holmes is going away," Morgan said. "He's answering for it. Hotch will make sure of that. It's enough."

"Really?"

"Has to be, doesn't it?"

They sat in silence until the ambulance and the cop cars pulled up to the mouth of the alley.


	17. Chapter 17

Emily made her way into J.J's kitchen, half-blind, navigating via scent alone. "Coffee," she mumbled, as her stomach growled like a bear. "Gimme coffee. Toast. Eggs. And a pan-fried _horse_."

Someone wrapped her questing fingers around a warm mug, and she took a gulp. "Ahh, that's the stuff," she said as the caffeine worked its way into her system, opening her eyes. When she got a good look at who'd given it to her, she straightened up, flushing and pulling her borrowed robe together where it gaped at her chest. "Oh, thanks, sir."

Hotch nodded. "If you give me time, I could probably manage the toast, although I wouldn't hold out for the horse."

"Life's full of little disappointments." She took another swallow. Captain Hotchner always did make the strongest coffee in Foxtrot Company. Enough to bring the dead back to life. Too bad that meant it tasted about like liquid tar.

"How are you holding up, after last night?" he asked.

"You know me, sir. I'm made of strong stuff," she said, adding cream and sugar to her cup.

"And Dr. Reid?"

"What about him?" she asked, a little too sharply.

His brows lifted very slightly. "Do you think he'll be adversely affected by the events of last night?"

"Oh. Nah." She forced a light note into her voice. "I think he's sturdier than he looks, though that wouldn't be hard." She frowned to herself without knowing it.

"And J - Mrs. LaMontagne?"

She looked up, highly interested. Had Hotch, ever-courteous and formal Hotch, actually started to call J.J. by her first name? He was looking away, apparently focused on the percolator.

"Far as I could tell, she was holding up just fine. But, ah, you could ask her yourself."

He ignored that sly suggestion. "Last night, what the three of you did - "

She braced herself for a stern Hotch reprimand. "Yes, sir?"

"It was excellent work. If you hadn't gotten there when you did, one or both of them could have been dead by the time we arrived. Well done."

"I, uh - Thanks."

"That being said, none of you are law enforcement officials. Don't let me catch you doing it again, ever."

Ah. Right. "Well, I don't foresee the occasion arising in the future, sir."

He nodded once, sharply, and turned toward the breadbox. She studied his haggard face in the dawn light as he dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. He'd sent them home the night before, but last she'd seen, he was climbing into the front of the cop car that was transporting Holmes to the local precinct. Though she and J.J. had been up late with Penelope, he still hadn't been home by the time they'd finally fallen asleep.

"Say, did you get any sleep at all?"

"A couple of hours," he said.

She narrowed her eyes. "You're headed back in, aren't you? Up to your same old tricks."

He shot her a sideways glance, the way he used to all the times she'd harangued him to get his rest. "Your opinion is noted, Lieutenant."

She rolled her eyes. She'd never succeeded in France, either. The toaster popped, and she extracted both slices and buttered them. She handed one to him, with a stern look. He took it without argument.

"You need us to come in?" she asked between bites.

"Not at the moment. Unless you want to help with paperwork and loose ends."

She toasted him with her mug. "All yours, sir."

"Thanks." He put his hand in his pocket. "I was going to leave these on the table for you, but since you're awake . . ."

She looked blankly at the dog tags he put in her palm, then her brain whirred to life. "The kid at Sacred Heart. The John Doe. This is him?"

He nodded. "Seems like. I found them while we were going through Holmes' place last night."

The metal was dull and dark, as if their owner had worn them next to his skin for years. "Are you sure you won't need these?"

"Holmes will probably plead guilty, if not insane. I don't foresee a trial."

She traced the name with her finger. "Robert Darmer," she read. "So why did Holmes go after him?"

"They were in the same unit out of boot camp. Holmes was wounded in their first battle."

She looked up. "He blamed Darmer for not having his back."

"From the sounds of it, he blamed everyone in the unit. Darmer was just the first he encountered after his discharge."

"And he snapped," she said. "Then, because that was the same kind of behavior that had gotten him discharged in the first place, justified it to himself. Made it his mission, even."

"Seems that way."

She shook her head, thinking of the young man at Sacred Heart, broken into so many pieces that he could never be put back together again, not all the way. Hotch ate his toast and drank his coffee quietly, letting her think.

She laid the dog tags on the table, stirring the chain around with one finger. "You're a homicide detective."

"Yes."

"You do this all the time."

"Not quite like this."

"But figuring out why someone would take someone else's life, on purpose, in peacetime. Digging in the mud for the nasty little worms. How do you do that without going nuts?"

He set down the last of his toast crust. "How do you tend to sick and broken and dying people all day long, knowing you can't save all of them?"

"Mercy fired me, remember?"

"Mercy wasn't paying you to look after Tambour last night. You'd be a nurse on a desert island, Prentiss. It's what you are. How do you go in every time without losing your mind?"

She let out her breath in a huff. "Because . . . because it has to be done. And I can do it, so I should."

He nodded. Understanding, she nodded, too.

Finishing both toast and coffee, he put his mug in the sink and started for the door.

"Hey," she called out.

He stopped and turned. "Yes?"

"How long are you staying at the precinct today?"

"Hard to say."

"Well, try to clock out at a sensible hour, okay? J.J. was talking about having us all over tonight. Rossi's wife, too, if he wants. Just dinner and some fun. Maybe a little dancing, a few drinks. No murder talk, not one word."

He thought that over. "I'll do my best."

She watched the kitchen door swing shut behind him and smiled into her coffee mug. "Bet you will, if J.J.'s the one asking."

She finished her toast and drank the rest of her coffee in slow sips, her mind sliding again toward the terrible certainty that had kept her from falling back to sleep when she'd woken at dawn. She flattened her fingers on the table and looked at them, seeing again the smears of Reid's blood that she'd scrubbed off the night before.

She found that her cup was empty and got up for a refill. A small noise caught her attention, and she turned to see Henry in the doorway. "Hey. Good morning."

"I thought you were Mama," he said in a small voice, tucking a ragged teddy bear behind his back. "Or Auntie Penny."

"They're still asleep," she said, feeling awkward. She didn't have much experience with kids that weren't in a hospital bed. Though all things considered, she should probably get some practice in. "We had a late night. Did I wake you?"

"Yes," he said. "Auntie Penny said you and Mama went to catch a bad guy."

"We sure did."

"Did he shoot anybody?"

She started to give a flip reply, then realized that his face had gone tight. The little boy really had worried about that, even though he couldn't have a very clear idea of how badly people could get hurt in that situation. "No, honey," she said. "One man did get hurt, but it wasn't one of us, and the doctors are going to fix him up. So don't worry about it, okay?"

His face unpinched. "'Kay. Did you have to shoot the bad guy?"

She stifled a laugh. "Nobody shot anybody. He came quietly." Eventually. She remembered Reid standing there, unarmed, skinny and rumpled, glasses slightly askew, explaining to a killer that he really should put the crowbar down. A shiver zipped up her spine.

Henry nodded sagely. "That's the best way, if he comes quietly."

It sounded like a direct Hotch quote, and the smile that rose to her lips banished the shiver.

"It's not a lady's job to catch bad guys, you know," he informed her.

"Oh, no?" She arched a brow. "A lady's job is whatever's in front of her, just like anybody else."

He gave her a sideways look, also reminiscent of Hotch, and hooked his chin onto the counter. He studied the percolator. "Can I have some coffee?"

"Aren't you a little young for that?"

"I'm five."

"Oh, well, _five._ " She did what Mrs. Rachmanova had always done when she was little. She poured him a mug of milk with a few splashes of coffee, just about enough to turn it beige. The clear delight on his face made her smile. "Here. Take it to the table. Don't spill. Now tell me, how do you like your eggs scrambled?"

* * *

Emily stood in the lobby of Sacred Heart, waiting for the elevator. Her eyes kept returning to the sign on the wall that listed the different wards and their floors. Maternity was on the second floor.

She tucked one hand in the pocket of her light summer suit jacket and surreptitiously rested her fingers on her abdomen.

So far she'd been thinking of this as an annoyance, the reason she'd nearly puked on a public street, the reason her whole life was about to get upended. But last night in that alley, something new had bloomed. When that gun had gone off, she'd dived for the concrete like everyone else, but her first thought when her head had cleared hadn't been for her own skin.

It had been for the baby. Her baby.

She'd never thought beyond the birth, supposing vaguely that she'd give it up to some foundling home or deserving family that Penelope would dig up for her. That was before she'd met Hester Frankel, who'd spent forty years caring for unwanted babies and clearly couldn't give less of a shit about any one of them, and Wendell Holmes, who'd never belonged anywhere.

She set her jaw. Hell if her kid was going to turn out like that.

"Prentiss? Is that you?"

She jumped and almost yanked her hand out of her pocket like a guilty secret. But she controlled herself and managed to say casually, "Greenaway? Didn't expect to see you today. Thought you worked nights?"

"I'm interviewing for new girls. All my best nurses are going off and getting married." The matron made a contemptuous face at their abandonment.

"Well, with all the boys back, what do you expect? Sorry to hear it."

"Me, too." The elevator arrived. "Five?" she asked Emily, and got an affirmative nod. As the elevator doors closed, she said, "So, listen, I know you're on days over at Mercy, but have you ever done a night shift?"

"I picked up a few here and there." In fact, it had been one of those picked-up shifts when she'd seen Wilton. "But I guess you didn't hear. I'm not at Mercy anymore."

Greenaway's brows shot up. "No?"

"Long, dull story."

"Bartle, right?"

"Yeah."

Greenaway nodded, slowly. "Y'know, I've got four open positions. You want one?"

Emily blinked. "What? Don't you need an interview?"

"I could call this the interview. I know your background and experience. I could push it through."

"Wow. That's good of you, Greenaway."

"Good, nothing. I just sat through six girls who wouldn't know their hind end from a hole in the ground, and the hell of it is, I've got to take some of them. I saw you with our John Doe the other night. You're the kind of nurse I need. So, you want it?"

It was tempting. Working psych, a good steady job even if it was nights, and a matron who was about twenty times better than Bartle . . . but the minute she started showing, Greenaway wouldn't have any choice but to let her go.

"I can't," she said. "Circumstances - I can't. But I appreciate the offer. Really, I do. I'd take it if I could."

The matron's dark eyes searched Emily's face, and whatever she saw there made her nod slightly. "Okay. But if circumstances change, you know where to find me."

"Yeah. I'll keep that in mind." She cleared her throat. "So, speaking of your John Doe, how's he doing?"

"Same as ever, poor devil." They got off on the fifth floor. "Have you got news?"

"More than news, I've got a name for you. Corporal Robert Darmer," Emily said.

The matron's eyes widened. "How?"

"We caught the guy who did this."

"We?"

"That's another long story. He doesn't have family in the city, but the army's contacting his next of kin, in Connecticut somewhere. They'll be here soon. In the meantime - " She put her hand in her pocket. "Can I talk to him?"

"He might not understand."

"He'll understand this." Emily left her and walked over to the wheelchair, still sitting by the window in the lounge, its occupant still slowly knitting. "Corporal Darmer?"

The man went still.

Emily opened her hand and let his dog tags slide partway out, so they swung jingling before his face. His eyes widened.

"I found something of yours," she said softly, and slipped the chain over his head. As they settled down on his chest, he lifted one hand and wrapped it tightly around the tags. He closed his eyes and let out a little sigh. The knitting slid forgotten to the floor.

* * *

Emily walked from Sacred Heart, because it was a nice day and her shoes weren't too painful, and most of all she had some heavy-duty thinking to do.

She'd have to leave Lynch's. She'd known that since yesterday. She and Penelope were probably on thin ice with the old witch after not coming home last night, anyhow. She had everything she needed socked away already. It would probably be smartest to leave the city, but her entire body rebelled at that. She was a New Yorker, bred in the bone, and it was a big city. She'd go to another borough, Brooklyn or Queens maybe. She had people to keep in touch with. Penelope, at the very least. Maybe J.J. wouldn't think less of her for getting knocked up without a ring on her finger. Maybe.

She wondered what the men would think, if they found out. Rossi was damned old-fashioned, but he might surprise her. Hotch respected her, and it would sting to lose that respect. Morgan, well, who knew about him.

Dr. Reid, now.

He hadn't said anything or treated her one bit differently, all yesterday, and she was pretty sure he'd figured it out. That was rare. _He_ was rare, one in a million. If things were different . . .

But no point in thinking about that.

To distract herself, she glanced idly in windows that she passed. She caught brief glimpses of dresses on mannequins, fruit piled up on displays, people sitting at tables reading -

She stopped dead.

"Hey, lady, this is a side _walk_ , not a side _stand_ , you get me?"

"So go around," she snapped back, but moved off to the side, still staring at the lanky man in the window of the coffee shop. He sat at a table, reading, turning a page every thirty seconds or so. Either the typeface was huge or Penelope hadn't been kidding about how fast he could read.

She'd see him tonight. He'd told J.J. he'd be there. She could talk to him then.

But J.J. wanted tonight to be fun and light-hearted, without the dark underlay of the whole previous week. The conversation Emily needed to have with Spencer Reid was not light-hearted at all.

The door jingled cheerfully as she pushed it open. When the waitress stirred slightly from her spot at the counter, Emily said, "I'm with him. Coffee, please."

She sat down at the empty chair across from him. He didn't look up, though, not even when the waitress brought her coffee and refreshed his. She raised her brows at Emily, who gave her a _Men. What're you gonna do?_ shrug.

She got tired of waiting, stretched out one leg, and nudged his chair. He looked up, blinking, and then smiled. His smile was unexpectedly beautiful in his thin face. "Emily. Hi."

He didn't seem to be wondering how she'd turned up at the seat across from him, complete with coffee. He just looked happy she was there.

"Hey, professor." She folded her hands on the table next to her coffee cup. "So, tell me. How long do the doctors give you?"

The smile wavered, then melted away like ice cream in the sun. He closed his book and set it down. "Eighteen months. Maybe two years, if I'm lucky."

For a moment she couldn't breathe. She'd _really_ wanted to be wrong.

"Well," she managed finally. "Eighteen months. That's actually not too bad for . . . leukemia, right?"

"Chronic myelogenous leukemia, to be precise," he confirmed. "Was it the nosebleed?"

"It was a lot of things, professor." She wrapped her hands around her coffee cup. The porcelain was almost too hot to touch, or maybe that was because her hands were suddenly so cold. "They spotted it pretty quick."

"I don't pay much attention to my health in general," he said in his most detached voice. His fingertips drummed the cover of his book. "But I was researching the aftereffects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and I noticed some similarities that I felt required closer scrutiny."

She looked up sharply. "You think you deserve this, don't you?"

He lifted one narrow shoulder and let it fall. "I don't know. Maybe."

"You were serving your country."

His eyes lifted, suddenly focused and fierce. "Don't misunderstand me, Emily. I'm proud to have served my country. But I'm ashamed of what my country asked me to do."

She leaned forward. "Do you know the casualty rate in the Pacific in the summer of '45?"

"It's difficult to pinpoint exactly, of course," he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "But I've read seven thousand Allied troops a week."

Of course he did. "Yeah. Every week. For months. Something had to be done."

"So killing two hundred thousand men, women and children is your answer?"

Her hands clenched around her cup. "No, of course that's not my answer, but . . . Look, I'm no fan of the bombs, but the war's over, isn't it?"

He sat back with a sigh. "Yes," he said. "And I suspect we could argue it for the next hundred years and not come to a satisfactory conclusion."

He didn't have a hundred years. He didn't have ten. He maybe had two. If he was lucky. "I don't care what you did, Reid. You don't deserve to be sick like this. Nobody does."

He studied her for a long moment. "Emily." His voice was unbearably soft, unbearably gentle. "It's all right. I've known for a couple of months now. I've . . . gotten used to it."

"It stinks," she said, her jaw set. "You could do big things."

"I've done big things," he said. "I want to do small things now."

"Like what?"

"You know. The kind of things that everybody . . ." He trailed off, cleared his throat. "So. What about you?"

When she didn't answer, he said, "Emily, I don't want to talk about me anymore. Please."

She looked into her coffee. "Okay."

"What about you?" he said again. "When are you due?"

She thought the words would bottle up in her throat, the open admission of she already figured he knew. But it was surprisingly easy to say, "March sometime."

"Have you been sick a lot?"

"Nah. Just some things upset my stomach, is all. It's not as bad as it could be."

"The father?"

"Went back to Boston."

He nodded. "And will he return for you?"

"Shouldn't think so. He gave me a wad of dough and told me to get it taken care of."

The memory barely stung anymore. She'd never expected anything but a little fun from John, and that was all he'd wanted from her. His defection had hardly dinged her heart. Nothing like the Grand Canyon that had opened up in it five minutes ago.

"Will you?" he asked. "Get it taken care of."

"No," she said. She'd made that decision long ago, about thirty seconds after John had given her the money. She'd seen too many girls after those butchers were done with them to ever go down one of those back alleys herself.

"What will you do instead?"

She shrugged. "I've got a ring from a pawn shop and a story about a husband hit by a bus. What more does any unwed mother need?" At his doubtful face, she said, "Seriously. I have money from my grandmother, and a little more saved up. Enough to live on for a long time. After that, well . . . people always need nurses."

A few different expressions crossed his face, and he dropped his eyes. He looked like he wanted to say something but didn't know the words.

"Hey, professor. I'll be okay, you know. We'll be okay."

After a moment, he let out his breath. "Oh, I'm sure of that. If there's anything I'm sure of, it's that you'll be okay whatever happens." He reached out to the bowl in the middle of the table and picked up one sugar cube, studying it as if it were the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. "All the same . . . would you be willing to consider an alternative?"

"An alter - " She realized what he meant, and the rest of the word jammed up in her throat.

He rolled the sugar cube so that it balanced on two points between his fingertips. "By which I mean, marrying me."

Finally, one word made it through, a strangled whisper. "Why?"

The cube slipped and dropped into his coffee with a splash. He looked down at the new spots on his jacket, then back up at her, frowning as if working out a complicated puzzle. "Because I very much want to spend the rest of my life with you, Emily Prentiss."

A noise like a sob escaped her lips.

He said rather stiffly, "I'm aware that this is a surprise to you. It was something of a surprise to me as well."

"Can I - um - " She swallowed. "Can I think about it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the late 1940s saw the beginnings of research into using antifolates to suppress cancer cells, chemotherapy as we know it would not exist for another twenty years.


	18. Chapter 18

Morgan walked into the precinct with far less trepidation than he had on his first visit. Had that only been six days ago?

The desk sergeant was the same one. Possibly the cup of coffee was the same one. He looked at Morgan with the same annoyed expression, but said, "Oh, you. Detective Hotchner said to send you on in."

New York's finest, Morgan thought sardonically, weaving his way through the bullpen. Hotch's desk was empty, but he spotted him in one of the interview rooms, with Rossi, and headed that way.

"Morgan," Hotch said, letting him in. "Thanks for coming by."

"Anything to get Holmes in a cage permanently."

The table was covered with evidence boxes, file folders, typed reports, and more. Hotch pulled Barney's file out of the stack.

Morgan took it. "How's it coming?"

"I'll be able to turn it over to the DA by five," Hotch said. "We're waiting on one more precinct to send their files over."

Someone knocked on the glass. "Hotch? Someone from the 5th for you."

"Thank you, Anderson."

Morgan watched him thread his way through the bullpen, and turned to Rossi. "He thinks this is his fault, don't he?"

Rossi made a face, tipping his hand this way and that in the air. "In his head, he knows that's not so."

"What about his gut?"

"Holmes was one of his men," Rossi said. "However briefly. You don't turn that kind of responsibility off like a faucet. At least, Hotch doesn't."

"All that shit Holmes spat last night, about initiative and critical thinking . . ."

"I've no doubt Hotch told his boys things like that. But a mind like that, it's a funhouse mirror. The best and purest things can go in and come out sick and twisted."

"Hotch gonna be okay?"

"He'll stew on it. Work himself out eventually."

Morgan sighed. He'd pretty much expected that. "He's not going to get in trouble with the brass, is he? For goin' off the clock?"

Rossi grinned unexpectedly, a broad sharklike smirk. "Don't tell Hotch, but I had a word with Strauss. Let him know what I thought of a captain who'd ignore his men's good instincts for the sake of a nice smooth day on the job, and just how foolish a man like that could look in the papers. I mighta turned in my badge, but I still know how things work in this city."

Morgan grinned too, feeling better. Bracing himself, he opened the file folder to read.

Hotch came back in with an evidence box. "This is the last of it," he said. "Morgan, anything to add?"

"Some. If you've got a typewriter, I'll knock it out."

Hotch called for one, and Morgan typed up his statement, occasionally referring to his notebook, as Hotch and Rossi worked around him. Half an hour later, he cranked the paper out and handed it to Hotch, who added it to Barney's file and put the whole thing into one final box. Morgan helped him and Rossi cart them out and set them next to his desk for the DA's office to pick up later.

Morgan noticed a two-foot stack of books on the corner of Hotch's desk. "Getting a little light reading in?"

"Hardly light," Hotch said. "Texts on criminal pathology."

"No foolin'?" Morgan angled his head to read a couple of titles. _Textbook of Abnormal Psychology. Crime and the Human Mind. Social Psychology._ His fingers fairly itched with the desire to crack them open. "Whew. You should hit up Reid for more. He's got plenty."

"I did. They're his." Hotch frowned at the books. "I called him up this morning and asked him for recommendations. He brought these by later and told me I could keep them."

" _Keep_ them?" Rossi said.

Hotch nodded.

Morgan said, "When I took him home last night, he gave me two books on Freud and one on Piaget. Things we'd talked about. Said he didn't need them back." He'd thought it was a little strange at the time, but given the stacks and drifts and dunes of books in Reid's poky one-room apartment, he'd figured the scientist had them to spare.

Now, looking at the books Hotch had gotten, it didn't look so much like generosity, but something more worrisome. From the tightness around Hotch's eyes and the line between Rossi's brows, Morgan could tell they'd seen it before, too. Men who, convinced they weren't going to make it through the next battle, went around systematically giving their things away.

Sometimes those men were right.

Rossi said, "You think he's okay?"

"Prentiss seemed to think he was fine last night," Morgan said, a little sourly.

"Fine enough to go home, that's all," Hotch said. "Don't forget, she had a critically injured man to deal with already. And I saw her this morning. She was worried about something, and I think it was him."

"If you say so."

Hotch glanced at him. "Don't make the mistake of thinking she doesn't feel anything, Morgan. Prentiss doesn't fall apart until the job is done."

"Would she admit it if there really was something wrong with him?"

"Only if he gave her leave. Confidentiality."

"Question is, would he?"

"I don't know." Hotch frowned. "He said he'd come tonight. Did Mrs. LaMontagne find you on the phone, Morgan?"

Accepting that they'd laid the subject of Reid aside, Morgan said, "About dinner? Yeah. I don't know if I'll make it. I promised someone a visit tonight, can't say how long it'll be."

"Well, in case you don't . . ." Hotch held out a hand, and Morgan took it. "It's been an honor working with you, Morgan. Anything I can ever do for you, let me know."

"Likewise," Morgan said, and found that he meant it. In a matter of six days, this man had become more trusted, more relied-upon, more respected than some he'd known for years. "Anytime for any reason, you can call me up."

Hotch's face eased into what was almost a smile. "Fair warning, I probably will."

Morgan grinned back at him, and found himself saying, "I'll try to come tonight. I'll do my best."

"Can't ask for more than that," Hotch said as a phone shrilled.

Someone called out, "Hotch, for you. About the floater in the river this morning."

"Excuse me," he said, and went to take the call about another body.

"Already?" Morgan asked Rossi.

"Funny thing, we never have a shortage of murders," Rossi said.

As they left the bullpen, Morgan said, "You miss it ever?"

"The hours were long, the people were scum, and you're more likely to get a sock in the nose than a sweet thank-you. I'd have to be insane."

"So, yeah."

Rossi snorted a little as they emerged from the station doors. "Good God, yes." They ambled down the steps to the sidewalk. "So, tonight's visit. Barney's ma?"

"Yeah. She deserves to know what happened. It's better coming from me, anyway."

"Being Barney's friend and all."

"She was friends with my ma. Tight. She's like another auntie to me."

They walked on further.

Rossi said quietly, "And yet, you hadn't talked to him in how long?"

They crossed a street, turned a corner. Finally, Morgan said, "Five years."

"Mmm. Y'know, my wife loves to read. Crazy new stuff, can't make heads nor tails of it myself. About twenty years ago, she couldn't stop talking about the New Negro movement."

Morgan didn't say anything.

"Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Thurston - "

"Hurston," Morgan said quietly. "It's Hurston."

"You know her?"

"We don't exactly run in the same circles, but Harlem's not big."

"The peak of that stuff, that was when you were in high school, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. We'd read Shakespeare and Dante in the classroom, then go out on the streets and buy ourselves the things that were being published by our people."

"Sounds like you were into it."

"Damn near marinated in it." It had been so heady, all that fierce rush of pride in being black, in what you could create, in what you could do, just as good as the white man, only different. He'd believed in it with the passion that only an idealistic kid could call up, and so had Barney.

"So when Barney joined up the way he did - "

Morgan stopped and turned to face him. "Thought you weren't a detective anymore."

"Never said that, son," Rossi said, looking back steadily. "Just that I'd retired from the force."

Morgan looked away first. "Fine, I'll finish your sentence. When he joined up the way he did, it was like he spit in the face of everything we ever thought was important."

Rossi stood quietly, waiting.

"I know why he did it. Better pay, better treatment, better opportunities. Better goddamn medical care. But I was still furious. I always figured he'd admit he was wrong someday, and I could forgive him." He smiled bitterly. "Knowing why he died, it's like, what the hell do I say? 'I told you so?'"

"You think that's really why he died?"

"No," Morgan admitted. "He died because he got in the way of a sick son of a bitch. But he's still dead, and I never forgave him."

"You want absolution for being human, Morgan?"

"I don't know what I want. I thought it was answers."

"Let me tell you something I learned in homicide. Nobody really wants answers. What they want is peace, and that comes in its own time."

* * *

J.J. picked up two socks, a shoe, and a toy truck, and stuck them all in her pocket. Henry had taken to leaving his footwear in this room, because he liked to feel the nice rug under his feet. She checked one more time and started to leave the room. Then she stopped, turned, and came back to look at her wedding photo.

For the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to remember that day. Will's face as she came down the aisle. Dancing with him. Laughing with him. Making love for the first time as man and wife, which was a whole different thing than climbing out her bedroom window to meet him after midnight - for one thing, she hadn't had to pick hay out of her hair afterwards.

The best day of her life.

How could she have forgotten that? How could she have let the pain of losing him eclipse the joy of having him?

She took the tags off and looked at them. Initially, she'd put them on to feel close to him, her skin under the same metal that had lain along his. Then it became a habit, like keeping her wedding ring on.

She held her hand out and looked at her newly naked finger. She'd put it away this morning, but somehow she hadn't been able to remove Will's tags from around her neck. Not permanently.

She'd promised Annabelle and Tambour both that it got better, but she hadn't said the most important thing - that it didn't happen all by itself.

"J.J?"

She jumped.

"Hey," Emily said, standing in the doorway. Her eyes flicked to the picture on the wall and the tags in her hands. "Sorry. D'you want some privacy or something?"

"No, come on in. I'm all right."

J.J. wondered if the same could be said of Emily. She'd come back from her trip to Sacred Heart white and silent, and Penelope had speculated that maybe it hadn't gone so well as she'd thought. But they couldn't get a word out of her on the subject. She'd helped clean the house and get things ready for that night, but J.J. kept coming across her standing with a dish or a sponge in her hand, staring off into space as if her head were a million miles away.

"Did you need me?" J.J. asked.

Emily shook her head. "Nah, everything's okay. I was just looking around for the radio."

"Not much on this time of day. Just the soaps. Tame stuff after catching a killer."

"Yeah, it's hard to imagine Ma Perkins waving a gun around."

J.J. laughed a little. "It's just over there."

"Thanks." But Emily didn't move away. Instead, she looked up at the wedding photo. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

Emily nodded at J.J.'s younger self, laughing and happy next to her new husband. "Would you do it again if you knew what would happen?"

"That I'd lose him?"

"Mhm."

J.J. wove the chain through her fingers like a metal cat's-cradle. "We weren't in the war yet," she said. "But I knew it wouldn't be too much longer, and I knew he wanted to join up. I married him knowing there was a chance."

"But if you knew," Emily said, oddly insistent. "For sure."

J.J. looked down at her fingers, wrapping the chain around them so tightly that the tips started turning purple. Then she let them fall. "If you asked me right afterwards, I would have said no. Anything so I didn't have to hurt like that. But . . ." She closed her fingers around the tags. The metal edges dug into her palm. "Yes. I think yes."

"Really?"

"He made me laugh, he held me at night, he gave me Henry, he brought me to this city. He made me so happy. Yes, I lost him, but oh, Emily - " Her voice shook. " - I _had_ him."

Emily touched her shoulder.

She sniffed and wiped tears away. "Obviously, I would have preferred to have him a lot longer."

"Obviously. Dumb question, but . . . you still miss him?"

"I'll always miss him, just the same as I'll always love him." J.J. let out a sigh. "All the same," she said, "life goes on, right?"

"Right."

"I should probably put these away." But she couldn't bear shutting them away in a box. It would be like closing the coffin lid again.

The other woman nodded, lost in her reverie again. This time, she was looking at a picture of Will holding baby Henry, one of the few times they'd ever seen each other. "Does Henry remember him at all?"

"Will only saw him a few times, on leave. Henry mostly remembers being told about him. Maybe if he'd been around more . . . " But there was no use pursuing that train of thought.

"The tags. You could give 'em to Henry."

"Of course," J.J. said, surprised that she hadn't thought of it herself. Her son was already starting to ask about Will, things like did he like peach ice cream or was he good at baseball. It would be good for him to have something of his father's to hold. She wrapped the chain around the tags and put them in her pocket. "I'll do that." She remembered one of the two offers she'd been meaning to make all day. "Hey, you know, when I was in the attic the other day, I found a whole box full of things from when Henry was a baby. Diapers, booties, you know all that stuff."

Emily blinked and glanced around as if she'd forgotten J.J. was in the room. "Oh yeah?"

"Just thought I'd mention it. In case you happened to know of a girl who's going to need 'em soon." She held her breath, wondering if the other woman would be offended or angry. After all, they hadn't known each other long, and this was a hell of a thing to presume, especially about a single girl.

But Emily smiled a little. "Could be I do."

J.J. let out her breath in a whoosh of relief. "Anytime they're needed. Let me know."

The smile widened. "You're a stand-up girl, you know that, Jayje?"

"You're just saying that because I gave you a gun."

* * *

Most everybody was in the dining room, but Emily found herself hiding out in the parlor, picking at her nails and listening to the radio. Amos and Andy were having a ball. Bully for them.

Out in the hall, the front door opened. It had to be him. Everyone else was here already, except Morgan, and Hotch hadn't even been sure he was coming. She went to the door and saw Reid, putting his hat on the hat stand.

She licked her dry lips and swallowed. "Hey, professor."

He turned.

"Can I talk to you?"

"Sure."

She stepped back, and he moved past her, into the parlor. She closed the door behind them and turned, lacing her hands together.

"Emily, it's all right, I understand."

"What?"

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and his shoulders pulled in themselves as if he were trying to make himself disappear. "Asking you was an impulse, and you don't need to feel obligated in any way. We've only known each other for five days, and I'm well aware that I'm hardly the kind of man that women - "

"Reid -"

"- fall in love with at first sight, and honestly love at first sight is probably due to immediate sexual attraction - "

"Would you -"

"- more than anything else, and besides, you have enough to worry about without being saddled with -"

"Hey!" she yelled, grabbing his elbows to get his attention. "How's about you let me talk before you tell me how well you understand what I'm about to say?"

He blinked a few times, then nodded. "All right. Go ahead."

He looked like he was facing a firing squad, Emily thought, and not for the first time, wished she'd said something gentler, sweeter to him in the coffee shop. He must have been brooding about this the whole day, just like her.

She slid her hands from his elbows to his wrists, gently tugging until his hands emerged from his pockets and she could wrap his long, chilly fingers around hers. "You know, when you told me what was going on, I knew right away that losing you was going to be awful. And I asked for time to think because I had to make up my mind just how bad it was gonna be. Losing my friend, a smart, sweet, kind, totally unique man - or losing my husband, a man I could very easily love?"

His hands jerked in hers. She tightened her grip.

"And then I figured it out. No matter what, losing you is still going to be the worst thing that ever happens to me. So I might as well go for everything I can get."

He frowned slightly. "I'm confused."

"That's a yes, professor. Yes, I'll marry you."

For someone who could talk so much, he seemed to have no words. His mouth opened and closed a few times, and he took a shaky breath. "Oh."

"Yeah. Me too."

"You're sure? Because I've done a fair amount of research, but you probably know better than I do what's ahead of me."

She nodded. "I've done a few rounds in the tumor wards, professor. The end . . . it won't be fast, it won't be painless and it sure as hell won't be pretty. But - " She swallowed. "I want to be there. I can't imagine anything worse than hearing about it second-hand."

He bit his lip as if trying not to cry. He took two deep, heaving breaths, then seemed to get himself under control. He looked off toward the window, brows furrowed.

Oh, Jesus, he was going to come up with some other reason not to do this, just when she was hell-bent on it. "Hey," she said, giving his hands a little shake. "What's in your head?"

"Just thinking," he said. "There's a twenty-four waiting period in the state of New York. Do you know where your birth certificate is? Because we can go to the county clerk's on Monday and - "

She had to laugh, even though her mouth was trembling. Unbelievable. "That's what you want to talk about right now? County clerks and birth certificates?"

"Well, what do you want me to say?"

She let go of his hands so she could loop her arms around his neck. "I changed my mind. Nothing."

"Oh, well, okay," he said, and then Emily learned that for a bookish type, boy, could he kiss.

She rose up on her toes, kissing him back hard. Someday - soon, maybe - this lean body would become emaciated as its very bone marrow betrayed it. As it already was.

But she had him for now. How many _nows_ , she didn't know, but every last one of them would be worth it.

* * *

J.J. sat down next to Penelope. "Did you know about this?" she asked, indicating Emily, who was talking Dr. Reid through a basic foxtrot, and getting her feet stepped all over in the process. From the way she smiled up at him, a couple of squashed toes didn't seem to bother her much.

"Not exactly," Penelope said. "But - " She grinned. "I'm not completely astonished."

J.J. shook her head. "You realize that they'll have known each other exactly a week on their wedding day? You'd think it was wartime again, couples rushing off to the altar before he gets called up."

"Don't knock it," Penelope advised. "That's how I married Manny." She sighed. "I'm gonna miss her when she moves out of Lynch's place. None of the other girls know how to have any fun."

"Hmm. How much are you paying for your room up there?"

Penelope glanced at her. "Forty a month."

"Forty?" She tapped her bottom lip. "Just so happens I know of a spacious room for rent. Thirty-five a month. Nice neighborhood, respectable landlady, good cooking . . ."

Her mouth fell open. "You want me to move in?" Why had this never crossed her mind?

"Here's the thing, though, Penelope. It's a houseful of people who really need to be taken care of. It's not for the faint of heart."

"Last thing I am is faint-hearted." She took off her glasses and twiddled the earpieces in her fingers. "Maybe."

"Think about it. Let me know." J.J. patted her knee, then got up and crossed the room to talk to Irene Rossi.

Penelope did think. It would be nice, she thought. And no doubt it would help the other woman out, having another source of income. One person's rent, at that rate, and a measly little Army pension couldn't cover a whole lot.

She watched J.J. ask Hotch something, studied the look on the taciturn detective's face, and grinned. And, of course, she'd have a front row seat to that little show.

She got up to refill her drink. She found Morgan already there, watching as Emily coaxed a kiss out of a shy Reid.

He'd come in late, halfway through dinner, and hadn't said anything for about a minute when they'd told him the news. He'd managed a smile, a handshake, and a congratulations, but the skepticism hung around him like an invisible coat.

"It's the real thing, you know," she told him. "Them. I can tell."

"Awful fast," he said.

"When it's right, it's right. Why waste time?" Although she wouldn't be able to do much more than take in and trim one of her old silk dresses for Emily to wear. Not what she wanted to do for any friend's wedding.

"Guess that's so," he said, and started to walk away.

"Y'know," she said to his back, "you're not the first person I've been too white for."

He turned. "What?"

"Manny wasn't some Spanish nobleman. He was a Mexican, almost as dark as you, and his parents hated me. Still do. Wouldn't spit on me if I were on fire. Gave me some bad times, too, I can tell you. But I finally decided that life was just too short for all of that crap, don't you think?"

He looked at her for several seconds. "It's not just me, y'know," he said. "If we were in Alabama, I could get strung up just for standing this close to you."

"We're not in Alabama. We're in New York City."

"Things ain't so different here as you think."

"Maybe not. But I'm not proposing we make it a double ceremony on Tuesday or anything. I just want to be your friend. Don't we all need more friends in this nasty world?"

He sighed deeply and came back to her. "Mrs. Garcia," he said in a low voice. "I'm gonna tell you something, and I don't want you to take it the wrong way. So please just hear me out, okay?"

"Okay," she said warily.

"You are cute, you are smart, and you've got the warmest, biggest heart I have ever encountered in anybody: black or white, man or woman. And if the world were different, I would be proud to call you my friend."

Her mouth fell open.

"But babygirl, it's not. We got to take this world the way it is."

She swallowed a few times, then whispered, "How is the world going to _get_ different if we don't change it?"

He laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. "You're talking about moving mountains."

"I read a book once that said all you need for that is a mustard seed."

He was silent for several seconds, then finally said, "Yeah, I read that book too." He smiled at her, and it was a real smile, even if it was so sad it brought tears stinging in her eyes.

"So what do you think?" she said shyly. "Have you got a mustard seed?"

"I think," he said softly, "that it's late and I need to go."

She watched him move around the room, saying his goodbyes, ruffling Reid's hair and saluting to Henry. He could be a friend, she thought. if he let himself. A good one. A dear one. The kind that made your whole life better, just by being in it.

He gave her one last almost-smile from the door and a little nod.

She bolted after him, her shoes clattering on J.J.'s polished floor. "Derek," she said.

He stopped, visibly bracing himself.

"Library's doors are open to anyone. Come by sometime. It won't be hard to find me; I'll be the cutest sugarplum at the reference desk."

She bit her lip, staring at his back. Hadn't his mama ever told him it was rude to turn your back on a lady?

He said, so low she almost missed it, "Maybe."

The door closed behind him.

She rested a hand on the door frame, her heart rattling around in her chest like a bead in a bell. Maybe. Maybe, from Derek Morgan.

How many mustard seeds was that?

* * *

The last cab, bearing Mrs. Garcia, Prentiss, and Dr. Reid, pulled away, and Mrs. LaMontagne closed the door. "Whew," she said. "Think I'll leave clean-up for tomorrow."

"It was good of you to do this," Hotch told her. "Especially after the week we've had."

"I like these people. All of them. I wanted everyone to make a good memory together after we've spent the week on such terrible things." She looked around. "Where's Henry?"

For an answer, he nodded toward the stairs. Her son was curled up on a step, his head propped on the one above it. To Hotch, it looked like an invitation to a day-long crick in the neck, but then again, he wasn't five.

She shook her head, an indulgent smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "He always thinks he can stay up and he always falls asleep."

"Do you want help getting him upstairs?"

"He's not too big for me to carry just yet." But she grunted slightly as she hefted her son into her arms. "Come here, my little bruiser. Bedtime."

Henry yawned and burrowed against her shoulder, pulling the neckline of her dress a little askew, and Hotch realized what had been bothering him subconsciously all evening. "Mrs. LaMontagne, you're not wearing your husband's tags. Have you lost them?"

"No. I put them away." She gave him a quick, sideways look over her son's head. "I thought it was time."

"Oh."

He watched her go up the stairs, thinking about that and the bare strip of untanned skin on her left ring finger. Unsure what to make of either of those things, he put them away to contemplate later.

He shifted furniture back to their original spots, rolled the rug back down, collected stray plates and cups and transported them to the kitchen to leave them in the sink. The house was quiet. Above his head, footsteps announced her movements as she put her son to bed. A light breeze nudged at the fine curtains and moved the air in the room. It felt like a place where darkness couldn't enter.

He knew better.

He shut the window, then checked all the others, plus the doors, before heading upstairs. She would check too, before she went to bed. She always did, although she knew he always did as well. It was an unspoken ritual.

He closed the door to his room behind him and went to the radio sitting on his desk. He twisted the knob, looking for the nightly news, and a familiar theme song thrummed in the speakers.

" _Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?_ "

He shut it off again.

Then he picked up a book from the stack that Reid had brought him and read the cover. _Psychology, Normal and Abnormal._ It looked very basic, like a textbook. Probably where he should start.

He opened it and began to read.

FINIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments, the kudos, and the subscribes! I had a wonderful time writing this fic back in 2011, and posting it here made me remember that. I've been asked to write more in this AU, and I don't deny I have ideas about where the characters would go from here. I don't know if I have another long casefile fic in me, but short vignettes may be possible. After all, think of everything that these people are about to live through, in addition to what they already have.
> 
> The best fun for me, of course, was the research. Of particular use were the US Army's military history website, the PubMed database through my local library, and Wikipedia (yes! shh, don't tell the ALA). More specifically, Wikipedia's list of sources down at the bottom of each entry were a great springboard to research. Finally, Google Books was insanely helpful. Most of my information about the Army Nurse Corps came from a book I found via Google Books, and every single one of the titles mentioned in this chapter was a psychology book published between 1935 and 1947, found using advanced search. Remember, kids, advanced search is your friend.
> 
> Some books that strongly influenced this fic were:  
> What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blundell  
> Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith  
> The Green Glass Sea and its sequel, White Sands, Red Menace, both by Ellen Klages  
> These were not research texts. Instead, they are novels that took place during the time period and sparked my interest in it. And doggone it, they're cracking good reads.
> 
> Thanks again!


End file.
